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Fruity Summer Sundaes

Bring back memories of traditional seaside ice-cream parlours with this light fruity sundae with macadamia brittle

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and berry share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 50 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

The recipe

Makes 4
Prep20 min
Cook5 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Put the caster sugar in a dry saucepan over medium heat and stir gently until it melts and turns golden, about 4 minutes. Stir in the toasted macadamia nuts until coated.

  2. Lightly grease a baking tray with sunflower oil, pour the nut mixture onto it and spread it thin. Leave to cool and set for about 20 minutes, then break into rough pieces.

  3. Blend the 350g hulled strawberries with the 1 tbsp icing sugar until smooth. Pass through a sieve if you like a smoother sauce, then chill.

  4. Chop the 8 strawberries that are not whole into small pieces and place them in a bowl with the chopped nectarines. Stir gently to combine.

  5. Whip the double cream with the 2 tbsp icing sugar until it holds soft peaks. Keep chilled until serving.

  6. Divide the chopped fruit among 4 serving glasses or bowls. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a scoop of berry sorbet to each.

  7. Spoon over some strawberry sauce, add a dollop of whipped cream and scatter with the macadamia brittle. Top each sundae with one whole strawberry and serve straight away.

By bbcgoodfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Vanilla + berrytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,437 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + macadamia nuttop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together106 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Sunflower + macadamia nuttop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together9 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Sugar and vanilla share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the berry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, vanilla, sunflower, macadamia nut):

  1. Coconutbetter flavor fit
  2. Bananabetter flavor fit
  3. Pineapplebetter flavor fit
  4. Berrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, vanilla, sunflower, macadamia nut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).