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Dessert

Dessert Gems

Dessert Gems are sweet treats made with egg yolk, sugar, butter, milk, cornmeal, flour, baking powder, egg white, dates, and desiccated coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Dessert Gems

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, stir together the beaten yolk of one egg, sugar, butter, salt, milk, and cornmeal.

  2. Sift in the flour and baking powder, then beat well.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg white.

Fill and bake

  1. Turn the mixture into hot gem irons.

  2. Drop a stoned date filled with desiccated coconut on each gem.

  3. Bake until golden brown.

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. Dates + coconuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together76 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  4. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg white
Beaten and folded in to lighten the batter and help the gems rise and set with an airy crumb.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the gems together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the gems to rise and become light.
Cornmeal
Adds a coarser, slightly crumbly texture and a mild corn flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, tenderness and browning in the finished gems.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the batter while contributing to its colour and tenderness.

The step that matters

Turn the mixture into hot gem irons. Pouring batter into preheated irons starts the crust setting immediately, so the gems rise quickly and release cleanly instead of sticking or spreading flat.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, coconut):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, coconut. 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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