Skip to main content
Dessert

Sultana Roll and Claret Sauce

A dessert of pistachio ice cream rolled with brandy-soaked sultana raisins, whipped cream, and served with claret sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pistachio and raisin share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 63 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Sultana Roll and Claret Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the raisins

  1. Boil sultana raisins for 5 minutes.

  2. Soak the raisins in brandy for several hours.

  3. Drain the raisins before using.

Assemble and freeze

  1. Line a one-pound baking powder can with pistachio ice cream.

  2. Fill the center of the can with sweetened and flavored whipped cream.

  3. Cover the top with pistachio ice cream.

  4. Pack the can in ice and salt for 2 hours before serving.

Make the claret sauce

  1. Boil sugar and water until thick syrup forms.

  2. Let the syrup cool (not cold).

  3. Add claret to the cooled syrup.

  4. Serve the claret sauce very cold over the sultana roll.

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. Pistachio + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together63 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

  3. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Pistachio + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together634 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Pistachio ice cream
Forms the frozen outer shell that holds the filling in shape.
Whipped cream
Provides a light, creamy filling that stays soft when frozen.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and thickens into a syrup when boiled with water.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour to the sauce.
Sultana raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness after soaking in brandy.

The step that matters

Let the syrup cool before adding the claret. Heat drives off alcohol and dulls the wine's flavour, and warm claret would not chill well for serving very cold.

Swap the pistachio

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiothe original
  4. Brazil nutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, raisin, brandy, sugar. 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

Brandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesPistachio Ice CreamPistachio Ice Cream36 recipesBrandy CreamBrandy Cream21 recipesBrandy PuddingBrandy Pudding13 recipes