Name: Fruit Punch
Ingredients: Juice of 6 lemons; 1 pint rich peach syrup; 1 cup pineapple juice; 1 cup strawberry preserves; Juice of 4 oranges; 1 cup sugar; 1 pint tea (prepared as for iced tea); 2 quarts water; Cracked ice

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 Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Juice the lemons and oranges.

Make the punch

In a large bowl, combine the lemon juice, peach syrup, pineapple juice, strawberry preserves, orange juice, sugar, tea, and water.
Mix well and set the mixture on ice to chill.
Before serving, add cracked ice.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Pineapple + strawberrytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together433 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Peach + strawberrytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together228 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Peach + pineappletop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together168 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons: Lemon juice adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the punch.
Peach syrup: Adds sweetness and peach flavour as the base of the punch.
Strawberry preserves: Adds body, sweetness and fruit flavour to the punch.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the citrus juices.
Tea: Adds mild tannins and a light, tea-based backbone to the punch.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peach, syrup, pineapple, strawberry, orange, sugar, tea):

Vanillafits better
Apricotfits better
Figfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, syrup, pineapple, strawberry, orange, sugar, tea. 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.