Name: Nut-fruit Filling
Ingredients: 1 quart cranberries; sufficient water; sugar to taste; 1 pint finely chopped or ground almonds or walnuts; cream for serving

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

Pick cranberries.
Wash cranberries carefully.
Cook cranberries in enough water to cover for 5 minutes.
Pour off the water.
Add the same quantity of boiling water.
Cook for 2 hours.

Make the filling

Mash through a colander.
Add sugar to sweeten.
Boil for 20 minutes.
When cold, mix in the chopped or ground nuts.
Spread the mixture between and on top of layers.
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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,130 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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 and bulk that the filling is built on.
Sugar: Sweetens the tart cranberries and balances their acidity.
Almonds or walnuts: Add body and a nutty texture to the mashed fruit.