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Dessert

Tutti Frutti

A fruit preserve made with brandy, fruit, and sugar, stored in a jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,664 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Tutti Frutti

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour the brandy into a two-gallon stone jar.

  2. Add the sugar to the brandy and stir until dissolved.

  3. As fruit comes into season, add it to the jar, maintaining equal measures of sugar and fruit.

  4. Store the mixture in a cool place; it will keep beautifully.

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. Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Brandy + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Brandy + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

  4. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

French brandy
Acts as the preserving liquid that keeps the fruit from spoiling while it steeps.
Sugar
Draws moisture out of the fruit and preserves it, adding sweetness to the mixture.
Small fruit
Provides the flavour and body of the mixture as it steeps in the brandy and sugar.

The step that matters

Keep sugar and fruit in equal measure. Sugar both sweetens and preserves the fruit. Adding fruit without matching sugar leaves less of the preserving syrup to protect it, so the fruit is more likely to spoil.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, pineapple, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, pineapple, sugar. 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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Ice Cream 57Cake 11Punch 8Icing 7Filling 6Ice 5 See all 17 →

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