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Dessert

Fruit Lozenges

A sweet confection made from powdered sugar, egg white, water, and ground dried fruit, rolled into lozenge shapes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and fig work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 318 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Fruit Lozenges

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fondant

  1. Mix the powdered sugar with equal parts of egg white and water to form a firm fondant.

Add the fruit

  1. Grind all the fruit using a meat grinder, mixing them as you feed them into the chopper.

  2. Stir the ground fruit into the fondant until well blended.

Shape and set

  1. Roll the mixture into long sausage shapes and cover with powdered sugar.

  2. Place on paraffin paper in a cool place.

  3. The next day, cut into slices about the thickness of a lozenge using a very sharp knife.

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. Dates + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Walnut + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together373 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Walnut + coconuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  5. Fig + coconuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Powdered sugar
Forms the firm fondant base that holds the fruit together and gives sweetness.
Egg white
Binds the sugar and water into a smooth, workable fondant.
Currants
Adds concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the fruit mixture.
Dates
Add moisture and sweetness, helping the lozenges stay soft and sticky.
Figs
Add moisture, sweetness and a chewy texture to the mixture.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewiness to the fruit mixture.

The step that matters

Forming the firm fondant. Sugar must be mixed with egg white and water in the right proportions to form a firm, workable paste. If too wet, the fondant stays sticky and will not hold its shape when the fruit is stirred in and sliced.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, walnut, egg, raisin, dates, fig, coconut):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, walnut, egg, raisin, dates, fig, coconut. 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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