Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Ginger Creams
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the powdered sugar gently for 10 minutes.
Whip the double cream until soft peaks form.
Soak the gelatine in cold water for 20 minutes.
Rub the tender apricots through a sieve and place in a saucepan.
Add lemon juice and brandy to the apricot puree.
Boil ½ cup of water, then add the strained gelatine and stir until dissolved.
Mix the dissolved gelatine into the apricot puree and warm it on the stove.
Decorate two quart jelly molds with fruit.
Combine the whipped cream with the warm apricot mixture, adjusting sweetness if necessary.
Fill the molds with the mixture and refrigerate until set.
To serve, turn the creams out of the molds.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,635 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,351 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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