Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Cherry Roley-poley
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Make a rich baking powder biscuit dough.
Roll it out to about ⅔ inch thick.
Pit and stew enough cherries to make a thick layer, adding sugar to taste.
Spread the cherries thickly over the dough.
Roll and wrap
Roll the dough up carefully to keep the cherries inside.
Wrap the roll in a cloth and sew it loosely with coarse thread.
Leave room for the dough to rise.
Steam and serve
Place the roll on a plate in a steamer and steam for 1.5 hours.
Serve in slices with cream or sauce.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the biscuit dough that encloses the filling.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during steaming so the dough rises and becomes light.
- Cherries
- Provide the fruit filling, adding moisture and tartness to the roll.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the stewed cherries, balancing their tartness.
The step that matters
Rolling the dough up around the filling. If the roll is rolled loosely or the filling is spread too thin or too wet, cherry juice can leak out and the dough can become soggy. Rolling carefully keeps the filling contained while the dough steams.
“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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