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Dessert

Maple Parfait

A chilled dessert made from beaten egg yolks, maple syrup, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Maple syrup and cream work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 607 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Maple Parfait

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Beat the yolks of 3 eggs until well mixed.

  2. Stir the beaten yolks into ½ cup of maple syrup.

  3. Boil the mixture until it coats the back of a spoon, then remove from heat.

  4. Beat the mixture with a beater until cool.

Finish and freeze

  1. Fold in 1 pint of thoroughly whipped cream until well combined.

  2. Pack the mixture in ice and salt, and let it stand for 4 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. Maple syrup + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together607 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + maple syruptop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the custard base, giving the parfait a rich, smooth body.
Maple syrup
Provides the main sweetness and maple flavour, and helps keep the frozen texture soft.
Heavy cream
Whipped, it adds air and fat, giving the parfait a light, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it coats the back of a spoon. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can scramble them. Stopping when the mixture coats a spoon gives a smooth custard that will hold together once frozen.

“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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