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Dessert

Cherry Diplomate

A layered dessert of cake and alternating layers of white, cherry, and strawberry or vanilla ice cream, finished with candied cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cherry and strawberry work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 217 recipes. Both carry ethyl pentanoate, which smells yeast, fruit. The science ↓

Cherry Diplomate

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Line a mold with thinly sliced white cake dipped in maraschino.

  2. Fill the mold with plain white ice cream.

  3. Add a layer of cherry ice cream.

  4. Add a layer of candied cherries.

  5. Add another layer of cherry ice cream.

  6. Add a layer of strawberry ice cream or vanilla ice cream.

  7. Finish with another layer of cake dipped in maraschino.

  8. Cover tightly and pack in ice until ready to serve.

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. Cherry + strawberrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  2. Cream + strawberrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Brandy + strawberrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Brandy + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Brandy + cherrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

White cake
Forms the sponge-like outer lining that soaks up the liqueur and holds the layers together.
Maraschino or fine brandy
Adds aroma and sweetness to the cake layers, moistening them without making them soggy.
Plain white ice cream
Forms a neutral base layer that sets the structure and softens the cherry flavour.
Cherry ice cream
Provides the main fruit flavour and a creamy texture through the layers.
Candied cherries
Adds chewy texture and concentrated sweetness within the frozen layers.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and pack in ice until ready to serve.. Ice cream melts and recrystallises easily, so a tight cover and continuous packing in ice keep the layers firm and stop ice crystals and freezer odours from forming.

Swap the cherry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Cherrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, cream, strawberry. 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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