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 ↓
Baskets Tilled with Candied Fruits, or Ice Cream Fruits
Ingredients
Directions
Build the base
Roll out the nougat to ¼ inch thick and cut a round piece 10 inches in diameter.
Prepare 21 wires, each 5 inches long, and coat them with ⅛ inch thick colored pulled sugar.
Fasten the wires to the nougat round, leaving 1 inch space between each wire.
Weave the basket
Imitate a rope with pulled sugar and arrange it around the base of the basket.
Roll additional sugar into strings ¼ inch thick and 3 feet long, braid them like a wicker basket around the wires.
Finish the basket with another rope of sugar like the bottom.
Add handles and filling
Make handles 2½ inches in diameter with the same sugar and pass them through rings fastened with sugar cooked to crack.
Inside the upper part of the basket, arrange a nougat foundation and fill it with candied fruits, fresh fruits, or ice cream.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ordinary nougat
- Forms the rigid round base that the wires and sugar work are attached to.
- Colored pulled sugar
- Forms the glossy, flexible strands and ropes that make up the basket's woven structure.
- Sugar cooked to crack
- Hardens into a brittle glue that fixes the handle rings firmly in place.
The step that matters
Coating the wires evenly. Pulled sugar is brittle when cool and cracks if it is too cold or too thin. Keeping the coating an even ⅛ inch and working while it is pliable helps the wires stay strong and the braid hold its shape.
“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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