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Dessert

Tuttifrutti, or Macedoine Ice

A chilled fruit dessert made with syrup, kirsch, vanilla, lemon juice, and mixed fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Apricot and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tuttifrutti, or Macedoine Ice

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix the syrup, kirsch, vanilla, and lemon juice.

  2. Freeze the mixture until it begins to set.

  3. Gently fold in the mixed fruits.

  4. Mould the ice into a desired shape and return to the freezer until fully set.

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. Apricot + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Vanilla + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together558 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together608 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  4. Vanilla + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Pineapple + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Syrup
Sugar lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice softer and less rock-hard.
Kirsch
Alcohol lowers the freezing point and adds a cherry aroma and flavour.
Lemon juice
Acidity brightens the sweetness and sharpens the overall flavour.
Mixed fruits
Adds flavour and pieces of texture through the frozen ice.

The step that matters

Folding in the fruit. Fold the fruit in while the mixture is partly set. If it is still too liquid, the pieces sink to the bottom; if it is fully frozen, they cannot be distributed evenly and the mixture becomes hard to work with.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, cherry brandy, vanilla, pineapple, grape, apricot, peach):

  1. Cherryfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, cherry brandy, vanilla, pineapple, grape, apricot, peach. 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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