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Dessert

Tutti Frutti

A chilled fruit dessert made with milk, sugar, eggs, flour, gelatine, cream, and assorted fruits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Tutti Frutti

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. In a saucepan, boil sugar, eggs, and flour in milk for 15 minutes or until thick.

  2. Add gelatine, previously softened in a little cold water, and stir until smooth and cool.

Freeze

  1. Fold in the cream, then place the mixture in a freezer and freeze for 10 minutes.

  2. Uncover and add the finely chopped fruits and cordial, then finish freezing.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pineapple + figtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Fig + pistachiotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Flour + pistachiotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the milk mixture as they cook and help give the frozen dessert a smooth, rich body.
Gelatine
Helps the mixture set firmly and keeps the frozen texture smooth rather than icy.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, making the frozen dessert softer and creamier.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers its freezing point, keeping it softer when frozen.
Flour
Helps thicken the custard base along with the eggs.

The step that matters

Adding the gelatine to the cooled custard. Gelatine must be softened in cold water first and stirred in until smooth and cool; if added to a very hot mixture it can clump or fail to dissolve evenly, leaving a grainy texture.

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, egg, raisin, flour, fig, pistachio):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, raisin, flour, fig, pistachio. 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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