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Drink

Fruit Punch

A chilled fruit punch made with sugar syrup, lemon, orange, strawberry, banana, peach, water, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Fruit Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar in boiling water.

  2. Strain the syrup.

  3. Cool the syrup.

Prepare the fruit juice

  1. Squeeze the juice from the lemons, oranges, and strawberries through a jelly bag.

  2. Combine the juice with the syrup and set aside until ready to serve.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the cut oranges, bananas, and peaches to the mixture.

  2. Pour in the water and mix well.

  3. Place a large piece of ice in a punch bowl.

  4. Pour the punch over the ice.

  5. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Banana + peachtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Orange + peachtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together385 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Lemon + peachtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together947 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolved into syrup to sweeten the punch and balance the acidity of the citrus juice.
Lemons
Juice adds sharp acidity that brightens the sweetness of the syrup and fruit.
Oranges
Juice adds sweetness and aroma, and cut pieces add soft fruit texture to the punch.
Strawberries
Juice adds fruity flavour and colour to the punch.
Bananas
Cut pieces add soft texture and mild sweetness to the punch.
Peaches
Cut pieces add juicy fruit flavour and soft texture to the punch.

The step that matters

Straining and cooling the syrup before combining. Syrup must be fully cooled before it meets the juice and fruit, otherwise the fruit softens and the punch loses its fresh flavour and clarity.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Blueberryfits better
  3. Blackberryfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, orange, peach. 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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