Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Summer Fruit Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pick and wash the fruit.
Place the fruit in a glass dish.
Macerate and serve
Stir in sherry, water, and powdered sugar.
Let it sit in a cool place for 1-2 hours.
Serve with cream instead of tart.
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.
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Sherry + creamtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,038 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
-
Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,141 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fruit
- Provides the main flavour, sweetness and juice that the dish is built on.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and draws out juice as it sits, forming a syrup.
- Sherry
- Adds a light aromatic note that complements the fruit.
- Cream
- Adds richness and fat that softens the tartness of the fruit.
The step that matters
Letting the fruit sit. Resting in a cool place lets sugar draw juice out of the fruit and dissolve into a syrup. Too short a rest leaves the sugar grainy and the flavour flat. Keeping it cool slows spoilage while the fruit macerates.
“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.
More fruit salad recipes
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.