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Fruit Cup

A chilled fruit beverage made with lemon rind, pineapple, berries, powdered sugar, and ice water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pineapple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,964 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fruit Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Thinly pare the yellow rind from the lemons and squeeze the juice over it in an earthen bowl, then let the mixture stand overnight.

  2. Thinly slice the pineapple and let it sit overnight in ½ pound of powdered sugar.

  3. Crush the berries and let them sit overnight in ½ pound of powdered sugar.

Make the punch

  1. Strain the juice from the prepared ingredients, pressing out all the juice.

  2. Mix the juice with 2 pounds of powdered sugar and 3 quarts of ice water, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Strain the mixture again through a muslin or fine sieve and chill until ready to 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 + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Their juice and oil-rich rind give the punch its acidity and aroma.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the punch and draws juice out of the fruit as it sits.
Pineapple
Adds juicy body and tropical sweetness to the punch.
Berries
Add color, aroma and fruit flavor to the punch once crushed.

The step that matters

Stirring until the sugar dissolves. Powdered sugar dissolves readily, but undissolved sugar left in cold juice makes the punch gritty and uneven in sweetness. Stirring thoroughly before chilling ensures an even, smooth result.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar. 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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