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Macedoine of Fruits

A fruit macedoine made by layering fruit and currant jelly in a mold until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Macedoine of Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly base

  1. Melt the currant jelly in a saucepan.

  2. Pour some melted jelly into an oiled mold and let it firm up.

Layer and set

  1. Layer some fruit on top of the set jelly.

  2. Pour in more melted jelly and allow it to set.

  3. Repeat layering with fruit and jelly until all ingredients are used.

  4. Place the mold on ice until the macedoine is completely firm.

Serve

  1. Turn the mold out onto a serving plate and serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + grapetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Lemon + grapetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,412 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Currant + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Currant + grapetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together346 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Currant jelly
Melts and sets to form the clear, firm body that holds the fruit in place.
Candied cherries
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture between the jelly layers.
Grapes
Contribute juicy texture and fresh tartness that contrast with the firm jelly.
Currants
Add tart flavor and small bursts of juice within the set jelly.

The step that matters

Let each jelly layer set before adding fruit or more jelly. Pouring warm jelly onto a layer that has not firmed can cause the fruit to float or the layers to blend. Gelatin-style set needs to cool and firm before the next layer, which keeps the stripes clean and the fruit suspended where intended.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, lemon, grape):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Cranberryfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, lemon, grape. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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