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Dessert

Maple Parfait

A chilled dessert made from egg yolks, maple syrup, whipped cream, and caramel powder, set in a mold with salt and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cream and maple syrup work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 607 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Maple Parfait

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Beat the egg yolks until very light.

  2. Add the maple syrup and cook in a double boiler until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  4. Whip the mixture lightly with a wire egg whip.

Fold and freeze

  1. Once cold, fold in the whipped cream and caramel powder.

  2. Pack the mixture in a mold surrounded by salt and ice.

  3. Optionally, add candied fruits in the same way as the caramel powder.

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. Cream + maple syruptop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together607 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + maple syruptop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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 yolks
Thicken the base and add richness as their proteins set gently with heat.
Whipped cream
Adds airy lightness and a smooth, creamy texture to the frozen parfait.
Maple syrup
Provides the main sweetness and maple flavor.
Caramel powder
Adds a toasted caramel flavor and extra sweetness.

The step that matters

Cooking the yolk and maple mixture in the double boiler. Egg yolk proteins thicken gently over moderate heat, but too much heat scrambles them into lumps. Stop when the mixture coats the back of a spoon.

“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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