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Dessert

Angel Parfait

A frozen dessert made from sugar syrup, egg whites, whipped cream, ice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Angel Parfait

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine water and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until it spins a thread.

  3. Remove from heat.

Make the mixture

  1. Slowly add beaten egg whites.

  2. Beat well and add flavoring.

  3. Once cold, gently fold in whipped cream.

  4. Pour mixture into a mold.

Freeze

  1. Pack with ice and salt for 4 hours.

  2. Optionally add chocolate, candied fruit, or nuts to taste.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 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 whites
Whipped egg whites give the parfait its light, airy structure.
Whipped cream
Folded in at the end, it adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Dissolved in water and boiled into syrup, it sweetens and softens the frozen texture.

The step that matters

Slowly add beaten egg whites. Adding the hot syrup slowly while beating keeps the egg whites from scrambling and lets them stay foamy and stable.

“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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