Skip to main content
Dessert

Fruit Salad

A gelatin-based fruit salad with citrus, berries, nuts, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine

  1. Dissolve ½ box of gelatine in ½ cup of cold water.

  2. Add a scant cup of hot water, lemon juice, and lemon rind to the gelatine.

  3. Stir in 1 cup of sugar until thoroughly mixed.

  4. Strain through cheesecloth.

Assemble and chill

  1. In a bowl, combine the mixed fruits and nuts with ⅓ cup of sherry wine.

  2. Layer the mixed fruits and nuts in a serving dish, covering each layer with gelatine.

  3. Repeat until all ingredients are used.

  4. Set on ice until chilled and serve.

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. Fig + bananatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Almond + walnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

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

  4. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Fig + grapetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together323 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable structure that holds the fruit in layers.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness to the gelatine mixture.
Sherry wine
Adds aroma and flavour to the fruit and nuts.
Mixed oranges, cherries, figs, bananas and grapes
Provide the main fruit body, adding juiciness, sweetness and texture between the gelatine layers.

The step that matters

Strain through cheesecloth. Straining removes bits of lemon rind and undissolved gelatine so the set mixture is clear and smooth. Skipping it leaves grit and uneven texture in the finished layers.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, orange, fig, banana, grape, almond, walnut):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, orange, fig, banana, grape, almond, walnut. 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.

More fruit salad recipes

Dressing 41Ambrosia 24Pineapple 21Grape 15Frozen 10Mixed 8 See all 267 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes