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Dessert

Tsarina Cream

A chilled cream dessert made with whipped cream, gelatine, powdered sugar, sherry, vanilla, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla 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 ↓

Tsarina Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cream

  1. Whip the cream to a solid froth and color it a pale green.

  2. Stir the powdered sugar lightly into the whipped cream.

Set the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in the cold water.

  2. Once soft, stir the gelatine over hot water until dissolved.

  3. Strain the dissolved gelatine and, when it thickens, gradually add the sherry, then the vanilla and chopped almonds.

Serve

  1. Turn the mixture into fancy cups for serving.

  2. Garnish with angelica.

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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sherry + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Almond + sherrytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together517 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (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

Thick cream
Whipped to a froth, it forms the light, airy body of the dessert.
Gelatine
Sets the whipped cream so it holds its shape when served.
Sherry
Adds a wine flavor and aroma to the cream.
Chopped almonds
Add crunch and a nutty flavor against the smooth cream.

The step that matters

Adding the gelatine to the cream. Gelatine must be dissolved and strained, then only just thickened before it is folded in. If it is too hot, it can deflate the whipped cream; if it has set into lumps, it will not blend evenly and may leave rubbery pockets.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, sherry, vanilla. 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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