Skip to main content
Dessert

Sultana Roll

A frozen dessert roll made with sugar, flour, milk, cream, and flavored with almond and vanilla, topped with whipped cream, cherries, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sultana Roll

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, mix sugar, salt, flour, and egg.

  2. Add milk and cook for 20 minutes, then cool.

  3. Stir in cream, almond extract, vanilla extract, and food coloring.

  4. Freeze the mixture.

Assemble the mold

  1. Line a melon mold with the frozen mixture.

  2. In a bowl, combine whipped cream, powdered sugar, cherries, and Sultana raisins.

  3. Fill the center of the mold with the whipped cream mixture.

Pack and serve

  1. Pack the mold in ice for 2 hours.

  2. Serve with claret sauce.

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 + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

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

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

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
Thickens the milk mixture as it cooks, giving the custard body.
Flour
Stabilizes the custard so it sets smoothly rather than staying thin.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the frozen layer a smooth, creamy texture.
Whipped cream
Adds air and fat to the filling, keeping it light and soft after freezing.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens the texture of the frozen mixture.

The step that matters

Freeze the mixture. The custard must be fully cooled and then frozen firm enough to hold its shape when lined into the mold. Ice crystals form as it freezes, so a smooth, well-chilled base gives a finer texture.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, egg, milk, cream, vanilla, brandy):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Hazelnutfits less well
  4. Pistachiofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, milk, cream, vanilla, brandy. 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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipes