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Dessert

Macedoine of Fruit

A layered dessert of fruit and wine jelly set in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 703 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Macedoine of Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the jelly

  1. Prepare Wine Jelly using Champagne and let it cool.

  2. Rinse a mold with cold water.

  3. Pour in enough jelly to cover the bottom by 1 inch and set it on ice to harden.

  4. Keep the remaining jelly cool but not hardening.

Layer and set

  1. Once the jelly in the mold is set, arrange some fruit neatly on top.

  2. Pour just enough jelly over the fruit to barely cover it, then set aside to harden.

  3. Repeat layering fruit and jelly until the mold is full.

  4. If desired, alternate layers with plain jelly.

  5. Let the filled mold sit for several hours to harden completely.

Serve

  1. If any plain jelly remains, beat it to a froth when it starts to stiffen and serve it around the Macedoine.

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. Apricot + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together703 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Wine + champagnetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together172 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Champagne + apricottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Champagne + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Wine + apricottop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Champagne
Gives the wine jelly its flavour and acidity.
Small fresh fruits
Provide the colourful, juicy pieces suspended within the clear jelly.
Oranges
Add bright citrus flavour and juiciness to the fruit layers.

The step that matters

Pour just enough jelly over the fruit to barely cover it. Too much liquid floats the fruit or pools jelly, while too little leaves gaps. Jelly must be cool but not setting, so it settles around the fruit without melting the layer below.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, champagne, apricot):

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, champagne, apricot. 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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