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Dessert

Sultana Roll

A chilled roll made from sweetened milk, flour, egg, vanilla, almond extract, whipped cream, and candied cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sultana Roll

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add sugar, flour (rubbed smooth in a little water), and the beaten egg; stir and cook for 20 minutes.

  3. Add a pinch of salt, strain the mixture, and let it cool.

Flavor and freeze

  1. Flavor with vanilla and almond extract, then fold in the whipped cream.

  2. Color the mixture green with food coloring and freeze it.

  3. Once frozen, turn it into a mold and sprinkle with candied cherries.

Fill and pack

  1. Fill the center of the mold with whipped cream, whipped to stiff peaks, adding powdered sugar and vanilla.

  2. Pack the mold in ice and salt, and let it stand for 2 hours.

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. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that freezes into the sultana roll.
Eggs
Thickens the custard and adds richness as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens the texture of the frozen mixture.
Flour
Helps thicken the custard so it holds body when cooled and frozen.
Whipped cream
Adds air and fat, giving the frozen mixture a lighter, creamier texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard for 20 minutes. Stirring and cooking the milk, sugar, flour and egg mixture long enough lets the starch and egg thicken it. Undercooked custard stays thin and can freeze icy or grainy.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Hazelnutfits less well
  4. Pistachiofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, flour, egg, vanilla, 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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