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Dessert

Tutti-frutti

A fruit preserve made with sugar, brandy, and assorted fresh fruits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 733 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Tutti-frutti

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a stone jar, combine 3 pounds of sugar and 1 pint of brandy.

  2. The initial amount of brandy and sugar can accommodate 7 to 8 pounds of fruit.

  3. For each pound of fruit added, include 1 pound of sugar.

  4. Use only high-quality fruit.

Add fruit and store

  1. Begin with strawberries and add other fruits as they come into season.

  2. Keep the jar in a cool place and stir every few days until all fruit is added.

  3. Cover with paper or transfer to cans or small jars.

Serve

  1. To serve, pair with cream, freeze it, or use in lemon jelly or pudding sauce.

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. Banana + pineappletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together733 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Brandy + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Brandy + bananatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  4. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Preserves the fruit and sweetens it, drawing out moisture to form a syrup.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that helps inhibit spoilage and contributes aroma.
Fresh fruits
Provide the flavor, color and texture of the preserve.

The step that matters

Keep the jar cool and stir every few days. Sugar and alcohol preserve the fruit only when fully dissolved and evenly distributed. Stirring prevents fruit from sitting exposed and fermenting, and a cool place slows spoilage while the fruit is added over time.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, pineapple. 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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