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Dessert

Queen of Trifles

A layered dessert of soaked macaroons, custard, almonds, cherries, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Queen of Trifles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the macaroons in the sherry wine.

  2. Blanch and chop the almonds, but not too fine.

Make the custard

  1. Make a custard by mixing the sugar and flour with the egg until very light.

  2. Gradually add the mixture to the hot milk and cook in a double boiler until very thick, stirring constantly.

  3. Cool the custard.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the almonds, cherries, and whipped cream until very stiff.

  2. Line a glass bowl with lady fingers cut in half.

  3. Add the custard, macaroons, and cream.

  4. Place cherries throughout the bowl.

  5. Top with cream.

  6. Decorate with cherries.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + sherrytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together517 recipes

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

  3. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Macaroons
Soak up the sherry and form the soft, moist base layer.
Egg
Its proteins set when heated, thickening the custard with the flour.
Flour
Stabilises the custard so it becomes thick without splitting.
Hot milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens as it cooks.
Shelled almonds
Add a crunchy texture that contrasts with the soft custard and macaroons.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the custard.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until very thick. The egg proteins thicken the custard as it heats, but overheating can scorch it or make it curdle. A double boiler and constant stirring keep the heat gentle and even.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, sherry, wine, egg, sugar):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Cocoafits less well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, sherry, wine, egg, 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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