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Alastasian Cream

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and strawberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,385 recipes. Both carry p-vinylguaiacol, which smells spicy, fruity. The science ↓

Alastasian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine 2 quarts of cream with 1 pound of sugar and 2 ounces of isinglass. Add vanilla flavoring.

  2. In another bowl, mix 1 quart of cream with 1 pound of sugar and 1 ounce of isinglass. Add strawberry flavoring.

  3. In a third bowl, combine 1 quart of cream with 1 pound of sugar, the yolks of 6 eggs, and 1 ounce of isinglass.

  4. Fill the molds by layering the mixtures: start with the vanilla layer, then add the strawberry layer, and finish with the egg cream layer.

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. Vanilla + strawberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,385 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-vinylguaiacol (spicy, fruity).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cream + strawberrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Swap the strawberry

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

  1. Strawberrythe original
  2. Raspberryfits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, vanilla, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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