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Dessert

Orange Cubes

A gelatin dessert made with orange juice, sugar, almonds, and figs, set and cut into cubes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and fig match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 519 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Orange Cubes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in water.

Make the gelatine mixture

  1. Boil the orange juice and sugar together.

  2. Add the soaked gelatine and cook for 20 minutes.

  3. Stir in the chopped almonds and figs.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pan and let it cool completely.

  2. Cut into cubes and dust with powdered sugar.

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. Almond + figtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

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

  2. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  3. Orange + figtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together407 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + figtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 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

Sheet gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable gel as it cools.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and adds body to the set gel.
Orange juice
Provides the citrus flavour and liquid base for the gel.
Chopped almonds
Add crunch and nutty texture against the soft gel.
Chopped figs
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness to the cubes.

The step that matters

Add the soaked gelatine and cook for 20 minutes. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and evenly distributed before cooling, or it will set unevenly and may leave soft or rubbery patches in the cubes.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, almond, fig. 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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