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Dessert

Ambrosia

A chilled fruit salad of oranges, pineapple, and coconut, sweetened with sugar, maraschino, and brandy, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 651 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ambrosia

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel the oranges, removing all pith and seeds, then slice them thinly.

Layer and build

  1. Layer the orange slices in a glass dish, dust with caster sugar, and moisten with a mixture of equal parts maraschino and brandy.

  2. Spread a layer of desiccated coconut over the oranges.

  3. Add thin slices of pineapple on top, dust with sugar, and moisten as before.

  4. Continue layering oranges, coconut, and pineapple, forming a conical shape.

Decorate and serve

  1. Decorate with dried cherries and shapes cut from candied angelica.

  2. Top with whipped cream and garnish with croutons of sweet jelly.

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. Pineapple + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together651 recipes

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

  2. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Orange + angelicatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together159 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  5. Orange + coconuttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet oranges
Provide the main fresh fruit body and juicy flavour of the salad.
Pineapples
Add tangy, juicy fruit layers that contrast with the sweet oranges.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws out juice that softens the layers.
Madeira wine
Adds a rich, nutty aroma and depth to the fruit.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a soft, creamy texture over the layered fruit.
Desiccated coconut
Adds a dry, chewy texture and toasty sweetness between the fruit layers.

The step that matters

Moistening each layer. Adding the maraschino and brandy mixture in measured amounts keeps the layers moist and evenly flavoured without making the dish soggy or leaving dry pockets, since the liquid soaks into the fruit and coconut as it settles.

Swap the angelica

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, pineapple, sugar, madeira wine, coconut, brandy, cream):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Angelicathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, pineapple, sugar, madeira wine, coconut, brandy, cream. 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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