Skip to main content
Dessert

Filbert Creams

Hazelnut cream balls coated in melted chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Hazelnut and chocolate work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 350 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Filbert Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Pound the filberts into a fine powder using a mortar.

  2. Mix the powdered filberts with the French cream until well combined.

Shape and chill

  1. Shape the mixture into small balls.

  2. Chill the balls until firm.

Coat

  1. Roll the hardened balls in melted chocolate until fully coated.

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. Hazelnut + chocolatetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together350 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Filbert + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22 recipes

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

  3. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Filbert + hazelnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Filbert + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Filberts (hazelnuts)
Provide the bulk of the mixture and a rich, nutty flavour once finely ground.
French cream
Adds moisture and fat so the ground nuts bind into a soft, shapeable mixture.
Melted chocolate
Forms the outer coating, adding sweetness and a glossy, firm shell as it sets.

The step that matters

Chill the balls until firm. The nut and cream mixture is soft when shaped. Chilling firms the fat so the balls keep their shape and do not crack or smear when rolled in warm melted chocolate.

Swap the filbert

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

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Brazil nutfits better
  4. Filbertthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against hazelnut, cream, chocolate. 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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate Drop CookiesChocolate Drop Cookies50 recipes