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Dessert

A Royal Dessert

A dessert made by frying stale cake slices in butter, topping with preserves, and serving with syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

A Royal Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cake

  1. Pour a little sweet cream over the slices of stale cake.

  2. Fry the cake slices lightly in fresh butter in a smooth frying pan.

Add the topping

  1. Once done, place a layer of preserves over each slice of cake.

Make the bread version

  1. For an alternative, dip thin slices of bread into fresh milk.

  2. Dip the milk-soaked bread into the beaten eggs and fry in butter until lightly browned.

Serve

  1. Pour syrup over the fried bread and serve hot.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale cake
Forms the base of the dish, soaking up cream and frying to a golden surface.
Eggs
Bind the beaten coating so it sets and holds onto the bread during frying.
Fresh butter
Fries the slices, adding richness and browning the outside.
Good sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness to the stale cake before frying.
Fresh milk
Soaks into the thin bread slices, keeping them moist before dipping in egg.
Preserves
Add sweetness and fruity moisture on top of each fried slice.

The step that matters

Fry the cake slices lightly in butter. Butter browns quickly and can burn over high heat, leaving bitter flavour before the centre is warmed. Moderate heat gives an even golden surface, and a gentle hand keeps the soft, stale cake from breaking apart.

“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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