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Dessert

Macedoine of Fruit

A layered fruit dessert made with lemon jelly, grapes, cherries, tangerine, and banana.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Macedoine of Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly layers

  1. Melt the lemon jelly and pour it into a wet mold until 1 inch deep.

  2. Add the grapes and let it stand until firm.

  3. Pour in more jelly and add the cherries, then let it stand again until firm.

  4. Add more jelly and the peeled tangerine sections, then let it stand until firm.

  5. Add more jelly and the banana slices, then pour in the remaining jelly.

Unmold and serve

  1. Once completely firm, turn the mold into a glass dish.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Grape + bananatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Grape + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

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

  4. Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Tangerine + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemon jelly
Sets into a firm gel that holds the fruit suspended in layers.
Grapes
Add fresh juicy bursts and a contrast of color within the set jelly.
Glace cherries
Add sweetness and a bright green color to the layers.
Tangerine orange
Adds citrus acidity and fresh juiciness that cuts the sweetness of the jelly.
Banana
Adds soft texture and mild sweetness to the layered fruit.

The step that matters

Let each layer set until firm before adding the next. Pouring new jelly onto a layer that is not yet firm mixes the layers together and blurs the striped effect. Gelatin sets as it cools, so each layer needs time to firm before the next is added.

Swap the tangerine

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

  1. Pineapplefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Tangerinethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, grape, orange, banana. 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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