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Dessert

Nut-fruit Filling

A filling made from cranberries, nuts, and sugar, simmered and mashed, served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Nut-fruit Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cranberries

  1. Pick and wash the cranberries carefully.

  2. Cook the cranberries in enough water to cover for 5 minutes.

  3. Pour off the water and add the same quantity of boiling water.

  4. Cook for 2 hours.

Make the filling

  1. Mash through a colander.

  2. Add sugar to sweeten.

  3. Boil for 20 minutes.

  4. When cold, mix in the chopped or ground nuts.

  5. Spread the mixture between and on top of layers.

  6. Serve with cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Cranberries
Provide the tart fruit base that gives the filling its body and sharp flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart cranberry purée and balances its acidity.
Almonds or walnuts
Add texture and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft fruit.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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