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Crystalized Fruits

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Crystalized Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 200°C (400°F) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. Cut the fruit across the grain and remove pits, cutting larger fruits into quarters.

  2. Make a heavy syrup by boiling water and sugar together.

  3. Cook the fruit slowly in the syrup until tender.

  4. Remove the fruit from the syrup and place it on a strainer to cool.

  5. Sprinkle the fruit liberally with sugar.

  6. Place the strainer on a plate in a 200°C (400°F) oven for two hours.

  7. After two hours, turn the fruit, sprinkle with more sugar, and continue the process until the fruit is dry and crystallized.

  8. Let the fruit cool completely before packing it in boxes between layers of waxed paper.

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. Apricot + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Plum + apricottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Plum + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

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

  4. Apricot + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Plum + pineappletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together147 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methyl-1-butanol (fusel, malty).

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

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Pineapplethe original

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

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