Skip to main content
Dessert

Ratafia Cream, Iced

A chilled almond-based cream flavored with rose water and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Ratafia Cream, Iced

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Blanch the bitter almonds and pound them into a smooth paste with the rose water to prevent oiling.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar and mix with ¼ pint of cream.

  3. Stir over gentle heat until pleasantly flavored, about 10 minutes.

Strain and freeze

  1. Add the remaining pint of cream and strain the mixture through a jelly bag.

  2. Freeze the mixture in the usual way.

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. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Rose + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bitter almonds
Provide the characteristic ratafia almond flavor, released as the paste is warmed.
Cream
Supplies fat and richness, giving the frozen result a smooth, creamy texture.
Powdered loaf sugar
Sweetens the mixture and softens the texture of the frozen cream.
Rose water
Adds a floral aroma and helps keep the almond paste smooth and blended.

The step that matters

Pounding the almonds with rose water. Working the blanched almonds into a smooth paste with liquid keeps their oils evenly dispersed, preventing the oily separation that makes the cream grainy or greasy.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rose, sugar, cream. 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.

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes