Name: Tutti Frutti Sauce
Ingredients: 8 tablespoons cream; 1 cup raisins; ½ cup butter; 1 cup pineapple, chopped; 1 cup cherries, pitted and chopped; 2 cups light brown sugar; 1 cup nuts, chopped

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tutti Frutti Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

In a bowl, combine the cream and butter until smooth.
Stir in the light brown sugar until well blended.
Add the raisins, pineapple, cherries, and nuts, mixing thoroughly.

Serve

Serve cold as a hard sauce or warm as desired.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together490 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Pineapple + nutstop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together162 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable body that sets firm when chilled.
Light brown sugar: Adds sweetness and molasses flavour, and helps the sauce hold together.
Cream: Adds moisture and softness, blending with the butter into a smooth base.
Raisins: Adds chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the sauce.
Pineapple: Adds bright acidity and juicy fruit flavour that cuts the richness.
Cherries: Adds tart fruit flavour and colour through the sauce.

Swap the pineapple

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, raisin, butter, sugar, nuts. 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.