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Dessert

Glace Nuts and Fruit

A confection of nuts, grapes, and cherries in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Glace Nuts and Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, cream of tartar, and hot water in a granite saucepan.

  2. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Wipe down the sides of the pan with a cloth dampened in cold water.

  4. Boil continuously without stirring until the syrup is brittle and clear when dropped in ice water.

Glace and set

  1. Stand the saucepan in hot water, tilting it slightly.

  2. Drop the nuts, grapes, and cherries into the syrup with your left hand.

  3. Lift the fruit and nuts out immediately.

  4. Place them on paper to harden.

  5. Ensure the stem of the grape remains on to prevent juice from running out.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Nuts + grapetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together224 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Cream + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Sugar + grapetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the syrup that hardens into the glossy, brittle coating.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent crystallization so it stays smooth and clear.
Hot water
Dissolves the sugar so the syrup can be boiled evenly.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring until brittle. Stirring during boiling can trigger sugar crystals to form, leaving the coating grainy instead of clear and glassy. The syrup must reach the brittle stage, which is confirmed by a drop in ice water, so the coating sets hard.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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.

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