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Dessert

The Pope’s Posset

A sweet almond and wine dessert served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

The Pope’s Posset

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch and pound the sweet and bitter almonds.

  2. Boil the almonds in a little water.

Make the posset

  1. Strain the liquid into a quart of heated white wine.

  2. Add sugar to sweeten and beat well.

  3. Serve hot.

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  2. Almond + white winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together331 recipes

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

  3. White wine + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,586 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Pounded and steeped, they release flavour and body into the liquid, giving a creamy texture.
Bitter almonds
Add a small amount of concentrated, aromatic bitterness that contrasts with the sweetness.
White wine
Forms the liquid base and contributes acidity and a fruity, mellow flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the acidity and bitterness of the wine and almonds.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, sugar. 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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