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Dessert

Dipping Creams or Bonbons

A confection of nuts and centers dipped in warm cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and pistachio match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Dipping Creams or Bonbons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fill the lower pan of an oatmeal or rice boiler with ½ gallon of water and bring to a boil.

  2. Fill the upper vessel with clay or allegretta cream.

  3. Stir the cream from the bottom up with a small paddle to dissolve it quickly.

  4. Remove from heat if the cream overheats to prevent hardening.

  5. Prepare a table with a plate of nuts and a dish of dusted centers.

  6. Place dipping paper or wax paper on boards about 12 x 14 inches.

Dip the centers

  1. Use a two-prong table fork to submerge a center in the warm cream.

  2. Lift the center and slide the fork to the side to remove excess cream.

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 + pistachiotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Hazelnut + pistachiotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Almond + hazelnuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together186 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Walnut + pistachiotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together195 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Walnut + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Clay or allegretta cream
Forms the coating that sets firm around each center as it cools.
Centers made by hand or in starch
Provide the soft filling that the coating encloses.
Halves of walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavor as a topping.
Split almonds
Add crunch and a nutty flavor as a topping.
Hazelnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavor as a topping.
Pecans
Add crunch and a nutty flavor as a topping.

The step that matters

Remove from heat if the cream overheats. Overheated cream hardens and loses its smooth, fluid state, so it will not coat the centers evenly. Keeping it warm but not overheated preserves a glossy, workable coating.

Swap the pecans

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

  1. Cashew nutfits better
  2. Brazil nutfits better
  3. Macadamia nutfits better
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, walnut, almond, hazelnut, pistachio. 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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