Name: How Candied Fruits Are Prepared
Ingredients: Pears; Pineapples; Quinces; Citrons; Cherries; Apricots; Peaches; Sugar; Water

Why it works: Apricot and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

How Candied Fruits Are Prepared

Ingredients

Directions

Pare the pears, pineapples, and quinces. Quarter the citrons and remove the pits from cherries, apricots, and peaches.
Immerse the prepared fruit in boiling water to eliminate the juice.
Drain the water, leaving only the solid pulp.
Place the fruit in large earthen pans and cover with a syrup made from sugar dissolved in water.
After about 6 weeks, wash the fruit with pure water.
For glazing, dip the fruit in thick syrup and let it harden in the open air.
For crystallizing, dip the fruit in syrup and dry slowly in a kiln heated to 90°F (32°C).

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.

Apricot + peachtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together342 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pear + quincetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together133 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Pear + apricottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together218 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Pear + peachtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together114 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pear + pineappletop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together169 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

Swap the quince

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, pineapple, apricot, peach, sugar):

Vanillafits better
Plumfits better
Figfits better
Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, pineapple, apricot, peach, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.