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Dessert

Macedoine of Fruits

A layered fruit dessert made with jelly and assorted fresh and preserved fruits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and plum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 163 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Macedoine of Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the jelly

  1. Prepare your jelly according to package instructions, using Champagne or sherry for best flavor.

  2. Keep the jelly warm while waiting for the layers to harden; do not reheat it.

Layer the mold

  1. Suspend a bunch of whole Hamburg or Malaga grapes in the center of a jelly mold using a small thread.

  2. Pour in the cold jelly until it covers the grapes, but do not let it set yet.

  3. Place the mold on ice and pour in a little jelly to cover the bottom.

  4. Once that layer is set, arrange some fruits in a circle or as desired.

  5. Continue layering jelly and fruits until the mold is full, allowing each layer to set before adding more.

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. Peach + plumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Grape + plumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together238 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Grape + peachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Grape + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Peach + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together385 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Jelly
Forms the clear, set body that holds the fruit in place.
Delicate seasonal fruits
Provide fresh flavor, color and visual pattern within the set jelly.
Preserved fruits
Add concentrated sweetness and a boozy, rich flavor to the layers.

The step that matters

Do not let the jelly set before layering the fruit. Gelatin sets as it cools, so jelly poured too early or left to firm up before the next layer will not bond to the one below. Keeping it liquid but not hot lets each new layer fuse with the last and keeps the fruit suspended where you placed it.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (champagne, grape, peach, plum, orange):

  1. Apricotfits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against champagne, grape, peach, plum, orange. 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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