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Dessert

Society Dessert

A gelatin dessert made with sherry wine, heavy cream, boiled rice, figs, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and fig work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Society Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Soak and dissolve the gelatin.

  2. Add sherry wine to the gelatin.

  3. Whip the heavy cream until stiff and fold it into the mixture.

  4. Stir in boiled rice, chopped figs, and powdered sugar until it begins to thicken.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into molds and refrigerate.

  2. Serve cold.

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. Sherry + figtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Rice + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Wine + figtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together195 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together572 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable dessert when chilled.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped and folded in.
Chopped figs
Provide sweetness, body, and a chewy texture in the set dessert.
Sherry wine
Adds aroma and a subtle acidic, fruity flavour to the dessert.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves smoothly into the cream and gelatin.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped cream. Whipped cream deflates if overmixed or stirred vigorously, losing the air that gives a light texture. Fold gently, and add it before the gelatin has fully set so it blends evenly.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Figthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, wine, cream, rice, sugar. 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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