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Dried Fruits

A cooked sauce made from dried apples, peaches, raisins, currants, and prunes, sweetened with sugar and thickened with cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Dried Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Wash dried apples and peaches in two or three waters.

  2. Cook apples for 3 hours.

  3. Cook peaches longer.

  4. Mash peaches when almost done.

  5. Optionally mash both fruits together when done.

  6. Add raisins or currants for variety.

Cook the prunes

  1. Cook prunes in a large quantity of water, adding a little sugar.

  2. Ensure prunes absorb enough water to have juice when cold.

Combine and thicken

  1. Mix different fruits for pleasant combinations, such as peaches with apples or raspberries with blackberries.

  2. For cranberry sauce, use two parts cranberries and one part raisins, cooking them together.

  3. Add a little cornstarch to improve the 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. Apple + peachtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dried apples
Break down into soft pulp that forms the body of the preserve.
Dried peaches
Soften and mash into the fruit base, adding body and fruity flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the preserve its thick, glossy character.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cooking juices into a smoother, more set sauce.

The step that matters

Ensure prunes absorb enough water to have juice when cold. Dried fruit must reabsorb enough liquid while cooking; if it is left too dry, the preserve will taste tight and may not stay saucy once it cools.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, peach, raisin, sugar. 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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