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Dessert

Solid Ratafia

A chilled dessert made from crumbled macaroons, ratafia cakes, cream, lemon zest, isinglass, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Solid Ratafia

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine the crumbled macaroons and ratafia cakes in a bowl.

  2. Pour the boiling cream over the mixture, adding lemon zest, and stir until almost cool and the biscuits dissolve.

  3. Dissolve the isinglass or gelatine in the milk.

  4. Add the dissolved mixture to the cream mixture.

  5. Stir until the mixture is cold.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a damp mold.

  2. Place in a cool place for about 12 hours until firm.

  3. Turn out onto a glass dish.

  4. Serve.

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. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,640 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

Isinglass or gelatine
Sets the cooled cream into a firm, sliceable jelly-like body.
Macaroons
Dissolve into the cream to give body, flavour and a soft texture.
Ratafia cakes
Dissolve into the cream, adding almond flavour and sweetness to the set dish.
Boiling cream
Carries the dissolved biscuits and forms the rich, creamy base of the set dish.

The step that matters

Stir until the mixture is cold. The gelatine or isinglass must be added to a cool but still liquid cream. If the mixture is still very hot it can weaken setting, while letting it cool too far before pouring risks lumps and uneven firmness in the mold.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk. 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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