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Dessert

Fruit Balls

Fruit balls are small, boiled dumplings made from suet, breadcrumbs, egg white, currants, raisins, and citron, served with brandy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Fruit Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine suet, bread crumbs, egg white, currants, raisins, and citron.

  2. Form the mixture into balls the size of walnuts.

  3. If the mixture is dry, add the white of another egg.

Cook and serve

  1. Drop the balls into boiling water and cook slowly until they rise.

  2. Lift the balls with a skimmer, place on a dish, and pour over a rich brandy sauce made with the yolks of 2 eggs.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together976 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the balls moist and tender as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Provides bulk and structure, absorbing moisture to hold the balls together.
Egg white
Binds the mixture so the balls hold their shape during cooking.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the balls.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the balls.

The step that matters

Cook slowly in boiling water until the balls rise. Simmering gently rather than boiling hard keeps the balls from breaking apart while the starches and egg proteins set. Cooking too vigorously can make them crumble.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, raisin, brandy, sauce):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Currantthe original
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, raisin, brandy, sauce. 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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