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Dessert

Sultana Roll and Claret Sauce

A roll of pistachio ice cream filled with sultana raisins, served with a cold claret sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Sultana Roll and Claret Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roll

  1. Line a one-pound baking tin with pistachio ice cream.

  2. Boil sultana raisins for 5 minutes, then soak in brandy for several hours. Drain before using.

  3. Fill the center of the tin with sweetened and flavored whipped cream.

  4. Cover the top with more pistachio ice cream.

  5. Pack the tin in ice and salt for 2 hours before serving.

Make the claret sauce

  1. To make claret sauce, boil sugar and water until thick syrup forms.

  2. When cool, add claret and mix well.

Serve

  1. Serve the claret sauce very cold over the sultana roll.

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. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pistachio + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together63 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

  4. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 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

Pistachio ice cream
Forms the frozen outer shell that holds the roll's shape when sliced.
Sultana raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the filling.
Whipped cream
Gives the filling a light, airy texture that softens as it freezes.
Brandy
Soaks into the raisins, adding aroma and depth of flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the claret sauce and thickens it into a syrup as it boils.

The step that matters

Packing the tin in ice and salt. Salt lowers the melting point of the ice, letting it get cold enough to keep the ice cream and cream frozen while the roll sets. Without enough chill, the roll softens and loses its shape.

Swap the pistachio

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiothe original
  4. Walnutfits about as well

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