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Dessert

Italian Tutti Frutti

A gelatin dessert with orange, lemon, almond, candied cherry, and pineapple pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Italian Tutti Frutti

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 15 minutes.

  2. Make a syrup by boiling sugar and water together.

  3. Pour the syrup over the soaked gelatine and stir until dissolved.

  4. Add the juice and grated peel of the oranges and lemons.

Freeze and add fruit

  1. Freeze the mixture until mushy.

  2. Stir in the chopped almonds, candied cherries, and shredded pineapple.

  3. Finish freezing until solid.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together428 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the mixture into a firm, sliceable body as it freezes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the frozen mixture from becoming rock hard.
Oranges and lemons
Add acidity and aroma from the juice and grated peel.
Candied cherries
Add chewy texture and sweetness throughout the frozen dessert.
Chopped almonds
Add crunch and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft base.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine fully in the syrup. Gelatine only sets when it is completely dissolved, so any undissolved granules can leave the dessert grainy or weak. Stir until no granules remain before freezing.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, orange, lemon, almond. 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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