Name: Whiffed Cream
Ingredients: 1 pint of cream; 9 tablespoons of fine sugar; ½ cup of wine; glasses or macaroons for garnish

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Whiffed Cream

Ingredients

1 pint of cream
9 tablespoons of fine sugar
½ cup of wine
glasses or macaroons for garnish

Directions

In a large bowl, mix 1 pint of cream with 9 tablespoons of fine sugar and ½ cup of wine.
Whip the mixture with a cream whisk until well combined.
Pour the whipped cream into the serving dish, filling it to the top.
Garnish with glasses or macaroons.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + winetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,887 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cream: Whipping traps air in the fat and liquid, creating the light, airy structure of the dish.
Fine sugar: Sweetens the cream and dissolves easily into it, adding sweetness to the finished whip.
Wine: Adds liquid and flavour to the cream, giving it a distinct aroma.

“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.