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Dessert

Angel Parfait

A chilled dessert made from whipped egg whites, sugar syrup, flavoring, and heavy cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Angel Parfait

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup and meringue

  1. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. In a saucepan, combine sugar and water. Cook slowly until a drop forms a ball in cold water.

  3. Slowly pour 3 tablespoons of the hot syrup into the whipped egg whites while beating constantly.

Finish and freeze

  1. Add the flavoring and mix well.

  2. Once the mixture is cool, fold in the whipped cream until well combined.

  3. Mold the mixture and pack it in ice and salt for 4 hours.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the parfait its airy, light structure.
Sugar
Cooked with water into a syrup that sweetens and stabilizes the whipped whites.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and richness, and its whipped air gives a smooth, creamy texture.
Flavoring
Adds aroma and taste, such as vanilla or sherry, to the mixture.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup into the whites. The hot syrup partly cooks the egg white foam and sets it into a stable meringue. Pouring slowly while beating constantly keeps the syrup evenly mixed in and stops the foam from deflating or cooking in lumps.

“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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