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Drink

Cherry Water and Raspberry Cream

A chilled raspberry and cherry flavored cream drink made with sugar, water, lemon juice, cochineal, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cherry Water and Raspberry Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan to make a syrup.

  2. Bring the syrup to a boil and skim off any foam.

  3. Let the syrup cool.

Make the raspberry cream

  1. Pick the raspberries and rub them through a fine sieve into a bowl.

  2. Add lemon juice, finely sifted sugar, cochineal, and enough cream to make 1 quart. Mix well and set aside.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and the cream, and helps dissolve into a smooth, fine-textured base.
Raspberries
Provide the main flavour and fruit body once pressed through a sieve.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the raspberry flavour and balances the sweetness.
Cream
Gives the mixture richness, body and a smooth mouthfeel.
Cochineal
Supplies the red colour of the finished cream.

The step that matters

Skimming the syrup. Foam that is left on the boiling syrup can cling to the sugar and cloud the liquid, so removing it while the syrup boils keeps the final mixture clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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