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Dessert

Sugared Fruits

A dish of currants or cherries coated in egg white and sugar, then dried in a cool oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sugared Fruits

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg white until frothy.

  2. Dip the currants or cherries into the egg white.

Coat and dry

  1. Roll the dipped fruits in sifted white sugar.

  2. Dry the sugared fruits in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C).

  3. Avoid browning the 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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. White currant + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes
  3. Egg + white curranttop 38% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Forms a thin, sticky coating that holds the sugar to the fruit.
Sifted white sugar
Forms a crisp, sweet, dry shell around the fruit as it dries.
Red or white currants
Provide the fruit that is coated and dried into a sweet, crisp piece.
Cherries
Provide the fruit that is coated and dried into a sweet, crisp piece.

The step that matters

Avoid browning the sugar. Sugar darkens and turns bitter when it caramelises at high heat. Drying at a low oven temperature keeps the coating pale, dry and crisp.

Swap the white currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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