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Dessert

Sultana Roll

A chilled dessert of pistachio ice cream rolled with raisins and whipped cream, served with claret sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

  1. Line a mold with pistachio ice cream.

  2. Sprinkle Sultana raisins over the ice cream.

  3. Fill the center with whipped cream.

Freeze and serve

  1. Let stand for 2.5 hours.

  2. Pack the mold in ice and salt.

  3. Serve with claret sauce.

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 + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Pistachio + saucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together63 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Raisin + saucetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 outer layer and provides the main flavor and frozen body of the roll.
Sultana raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness against the cold ice cream.
Whipped cream
Fills the center, adding a light, airy texture and softer richness.
Claret sauce
Adds a tart, fruity contrast to the sweet, creamy frozen layers.

The step that matters

Pack the mold in ice and salt. Salt lowers the melting point of the ice, making it colder than ice alone. This keeps the ice cream firm while the roll sets, so it holds its shape when unmolded.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pistachio, cream, sauce. 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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