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Dessert

Parfaits of Chestnuts or Candied Fruits

A chilled dessert of chestnuts or candied fruits soaked in brandy, coated in powdered sugar, and set in an angel parfait mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chestnut and sugar work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 647 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Parfaits of Chestnuts or Candied Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chestnuts

  1. Soak the chestnuts or candied fruits in brandy for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain well and roll in powdered sugar.

Assemble and freeze

  1. Mix the prepared chestnuts or fruits with the angel parfait mixture.

  2. Mould the parfait and pack it in ice and salt for 3 hours.

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. Chestnut + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  3. Chestnut + brandytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Chestnuts or candied fruits
Provide bulk and chewy texture, with sweetness from the sugar coating.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour while the chestnuts or fruits soak.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the chestnuts or fruits and gives a dry coating on the outside.

Swap the chestnut

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Chestnutthe original
  3. Walnutfits less well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, 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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