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Dessert

Glace Fruit and Nuts

Candied fruit and nuts made by boiling sugar syrup and coating fruit and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Glace Fruit and Nuts

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil water and sugar until the syrup threads.

  2. Add vinegar and continue cooking until the syrup changes color or is brittle in cold water.

  3. Remove from heat and place over hot water.

Coat and set

  1. Drop fruit and nuts one at a time into the syrup using a fork.

  2. Remove and place on oiled plates without stirring the syrup.

  3. Work quickly to ensure proper coating.

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. Walnut + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

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

  2. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  3. Orange + grapetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

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

  4. Grape + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Grape + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the syrup that hardens into a crisp, glossy coating around each piece.
Vinegar
Acidity helps keep the syrup from crystallizing, so it stays smooth and clear.
Navel oranges
Provide the fruit pieces that are coated in the hardened syrup.
White grapes
Provide the fruit pieces that are coated in the hardened syrup.
English walnuts
Provide the nut pieces that are coated in the hardened syrup.

The step that matters

Stop stirring once the fruit goes in. Stirring a hot sugar syrup encourages crystals to form, which turns the coating grainy instead of smooth and glassy. Work quickly while the syrup is at the right thickness so each piece gets an even coat.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Pistachiofits about as well
  2. Cashew nutfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Hazelnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, orange, grape, almond. 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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