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Dessert

Tipsy Parson

A sponge cake studded with almonds, soaked in sherry wine, topped with custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and sherry work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 517 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Tipsy Parson

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds by pouring boiling water over them.

  2. Once cool, remove the skins from the almonds.

Assemble and serve

  1. Insert the almonds into the sponge cake.

  2. Pour the sherry wine over the cake.

  3. Prepare the custard and pour it over the cake just before serving.

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. Almond + sherrytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together517 recipes

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

  2. Almond + winetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

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

  3. Sherry + winetop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Provide the nutty flavour and crunchy texture that stand out against the soft sponge.
Sherry wine
Adds aromatic depth and moisture as it soaks into the sponge cake.
Sponge cake
Forms the light, airy base that soaks up the sherry and custard.
Custard
Adds richness and creamy moisture to the cake when poured on just before serving.

The step that matters

Pour the custard just before serving. Custard added too early soaks into the sponge, making it soggy and losing the contrast between the light cake and the creamy topping.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, wine):

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Peasfits better
  3. Almondthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, wine. 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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