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Dessert

Fruit Salad

A fruit salad made with pineapple, oranges, bananas, grapes, peaches, orange juice, powdered sugar, Maraschino liqueur, brandy, ice, fresh cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and banana 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 ↓

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Combine pineapple, oranges, bananas, white grapes, and peaches in a bowl.

  2. Squeeze the juice of 2 large oranges into another bowl.

Make the syrup

  1. Add ½ pound powdered sugar, ⅓ pint Maraschino liqueur, ½ cup brandy, and 3 tablespoons cracked ice to the orange juice; mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture over the fruit.

Top and serve

  1. Beat 1 quart fresh cream until stiff, then add sugar and ⅓ pint Maraschino; mix gently.

  2. Place the whipped cream high in the center of the fruit salad and add a few grapes on top.

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. Pineapple + bananatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together733 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Pineapple + peachtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together168 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Banana + peachtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Pineapple + grapetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together709 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Banana + grapetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh cream
Whipped until stiff, it forms a light, airy topping that holds its shape on the fruit.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily in the orange juice, sweetening the liquid that coats the fruit.
Brandy
Adds a warm, aromatic note to the juice mixture poured over the fruit.
Maraschino liqueur
Contributes sweetness and an aromatic, cherry-like flavour to both the syrup and the cream.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and fresh citrus flavour that brightens the sweet fruit and syrup.

The step that matters

Whipping the cream until stiff. Cream must be beaten just until it holds stiff peaks. Overbeating turns it grainy and can cause it to separate, while underbeating leaves a runny topping that slides off the fruit.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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

More fruit salad recipes

Dressing 41Ambrosia 24Pineapple 21Grape 15Frozen 10Mixed 8 See all 267 →

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