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Balsamic Blueberries with Vanilla Ice Cream

Poaching blueberries really brings out their flavour, especially with a dash of balsamic vinegar

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 12,294 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 2
Prep10 min
Cook2 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (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 blueberries, caster sugar and balsamic vinegar into a small saucepan.

  2. Set over medium heat and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring gently, until the berries start to burst and the juices turn syrupy.

  3. Take the pan off the heat and let the blueberries cool for about 5 minutes.

  4. Scoop the vanilla ice cream into two serving bowls, using 4 scoops in total.

  5. Spoon the warm balsamic blueberries over the ice cream and serve with the crisp biscuits on the side.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together12,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,437 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + biscuittop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,804 recipes

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

Vanilla and cream share little aroma chemistry, yet 12,294 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