Name: Mixed Fruit Pastry
Ingredients: 1 lb currants; 4 oz beef suet; 3 oz candied orange rind; 3 oz candied lemon rind; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; mixed spices to taste; 4 oz macaroons or ratafias; 14 oz butter; 1 lb flour

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Mixed Fruit Pastry

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Roll out half of the pastry dough into a thin square.
Spread the mixed fruit and spices evenly on the dough.
Moisten the edges and cover with the other half of the rolled dough.
Press the edges together and mark into 2-inch by 3-inch sections.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden.
Cut into cakes while warm and serve hot or cold.

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.

Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Currant + orangetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,034 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, orange, lemon, butter, flour):

Limefits better
Raisinfits better
Blackberryfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, orange, lemon, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.