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Dessert

Sultana Roll and Claret Sauce

A chilled pistachio ice cream roll filled with sultana raisins, topped with claret sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and raisin share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 63 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Sultana Roll and Claret Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil sultana raisins for 5 minutes.

  2. Soak the raisins in brandy for several hours.

  3. Drain the raisins before using.

Assemble the roll

  1. Line one-pound baking powder cans with pistachio ice cream.

  2. Sprinkle the drained raisins in the cans.

  3. Fill the center with sweetened and flavored whipped cream.

  4. Cover the top with more pistachio ice cream.

Freeze and serve

  1. Pack the cans in ice and salt for 2 hours before serving.

  2. Boil sugar and water to a thick syrup.

  3. Let the syrup cool slightly.

  4. Add claret to the syrup.

  5. Serve very cold over the sultana roll.

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. Pistachio + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together63 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

  3. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Pistachio + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together634 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Pistachio ice cream
Forms the frozen outer layers that hold the roll together and set it firm.
Sultana raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the filling.
Brandy
Soaks into the raisins, adding aroma and flavor.
Whipped cream
Makes a light, creamy center that stays soft against the frozen layers.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and lowers its freezing point so it stays pourable when cold.

The step that matters

Packing the cans in ice and salt. Salt lowers the freezing point of the ice, making it colder than plain ice so the ice cream sets firmly. Without enough cold, the roll softens and loses its shape.

Swap the pistachio

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, raisin, brandy, sugar):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiothe original
  4. Brazil nutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, raisin, brandy, 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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