Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Raisin Wine, in Imitation of Frontignac
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the raisins in water for one hour.
Strain the boiling liquid over the loaf sugar and stir well.
When cool, pour it into a cask and add a moderate quantity of yeast.
Once fermentation subsides, suspend a muslin bag with elderflowers in the cask.
When the wine is clear, draw it off into bottles.
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.
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Raisin + winetop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,324 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together9,581 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Raisins
- Provide the fruit sugars and flavour that the fermenting yeast turns into alcohol.
- Loaf sugar
- Adds extra sugar for the yeast to ferment, raising the alcohol content and sweetness.
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the wine's fermentation.
- Elderflowers
- Contribute floral aroma to the finished wine.
The step that matters
Adding the elderflowers after fermentation subsides. Elderflowers are added in a muslin bag only once fermentation has slowed, because the vigorous bubbling would carry aromatic compounds out and could stir up sediment. Adding them later preserves their delicate floral character.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, wine):
- Vanillafits better
- Applefits better
- Grapefits better
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, wine. 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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