Name: Fruit Gelatine
Ingredients: ¼ pound dates, chopped; ¼ pound figs, chopped; Chopped candied cherries or pineapple, or pulp of 1 orange, or 1 sliced banana; ½ pint cold water; 1 cup sugar; 1 quart boiling water; Juice of 2 lemons; Juice of 1 orange; 2 teaspoons caramel

Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Fruit Gelatine

Ingredients

Directions

Stone and chop the dates and figs.
Mix the chopped dates, figs, and your choice of fruit.
Cover the gelatine with cold water and let it soak for 30 minutes.
Add sugar and boiling water to the soaked gelatine; stir until dissolved.
Mix in the lemon and orange juice, and caramel.
Strain the mixture into a mould over the fruit.
Let it sit until firm, then turn it out onto a glass dish.
Serve with or without whipped cream.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Dates + figtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together318 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Fig + pineappletop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together100 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Fig + orangetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together407 recipes

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

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

Swap the dates

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

Vanillafits better
Apricotfits better
Peachfits better
Datesthe original

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