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Dessert

Fruit Balls

Fruit balls are small, boiled fruit-filled spheres made with suet, bread crumbs, dried fruit, spices, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the suet, bread crumbs, currants, raisins, citron, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Beat the egg whites until frothy and add to the dry mixture; mix thoroughly.

  3. Form the mixture into balls the size of walnuts.

Cook and serve

  1. Drop the balls into a kettle of boiling water.

  2. Cover securely and simmer gently until they float, about 20 minutes.

  3. Remove carefully to avoid breaking and place in a serving dish.

  4. Pour a rich brandy or lemon sauce around the fruit balls, using the two egg yolks if 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.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the balls moist and rich as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Soak up moisture and bind the mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Egg whites
Bind the mixture together and help the balls set as they cook.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Cover securely and simmer gently. Boiling vigorously can break the delicate balls apart, while gentle simmering lets them cook through and set without falling apart.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, raisin, cinnamon, nutmeg, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, cinnamon, nutmeg, egg. 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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