Why it works: Cherry and brandy work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 300 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Custard, Cherry
Ingredients
Directions
Place the macaroons at the bottom of a glass dish.
Add the cherries and their juice over the macaroons.
Allow the macaroons to absorb the juice.
Pour the custard over the macaroons and cherries.
Garnish with additional macaroons and cherries.
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.
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Cherry + brandytop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together300 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Macaroons
- Soak up the cherry juice and give the dessert a soft, moist base with a chewy texture.
- Cherries
- Add tart fruit flavour and a juicy layer that contrasts with the sweet custard.
- Cherry juice
- Moistens the macaroons and carries cherry flavour through the dessert.
- Rich custard
- Forms a creamy, sweet layer that sets the dessert's richness and texture.
The step that matters
Allow the macaroons to absorb the juice. If the macaroons are not given time to soak, they stay dry and crumbly under the custard. Soaking softens their starch and lets the juice spread evenly through the base.
“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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