Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Fruit Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the flour and sugar thoroughly.
Slowly add the heated fruit juice and cook for 15 minutes.
If desired, add the candied or preserved fruit and stir well.
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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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Starch thickens the juice as it cooks, giving the sauce body.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the juice.
- Fruit juice
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries its main fruit flavor.
- Candied or preserved fruit
- Adds concentrated fruit flavor, sweetness and small chewy pieces.
The step that matters
Adding the hot juice slowly. Pouring the hot juice in slowly and stirring keeps the flour from clumping. Starch thickens the liquid only as it heats, so the sauce needs the full cooking time to reach its proper body.
“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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