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Dessert

Tutti-frutti Sauce

A fruit sauce made with raisins, almonds, citron, lemon, orange, butter, sugar, water, sherry, and arrow-root.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Tutti-frutti Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Combine raisins, almonds, citron, lemon juice, lemon rind, and orange peel in a bowl.

  2. Heat the boiling water and pour the hot water over the fruit mixture.

  3. Cover the bowl.

Steep and thicken

  1. Place the covered bowl in a vessel of boiling water and let it stand for 1 hour.

  2. Beat in the creamed butter, powdered sugar, and arrow-root.

  3. Heat the mixture to a boil.

  4. Add the sherry.

Serve

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

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

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy body that gives the sauce its fruity character.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves smoothly into the sauce for a fine texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Arrow-root
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body and a glossy texture.
Sherry
Adds a wine-like aroma and acidity that brightens the sweet fruit.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances sweetness and sharpens the fruit flavour.

The step that matters

Heating the arrow-root mixture to a boil. Arrow-root thickens only when it is heated enough for its starch granules to swell and gelatinise. Stop too early and the sauce stays thin; keep stirring so it does not clump or scorch on the bottom.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, lemon, orange, butter, sugar, sherry. 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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