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Dessert

Iced Cake

A fried brioche cake soaked in vanilla cream, coated in breadcrumbs and served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and sugar 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 ↓

Iced Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fingers

  1. Divide the brioche paste into twenty-four equal parts and shape them into small fingers.

  2. Bake the fingers until they are a very light color.

Soak and coat

  1. Place the baked fingers in a deep sauté pan and pour the boiled cream with vanilla over them.

  2. Allow the fingers to soak in the cream until completely cold.

  3. Dip the soaked fingers in beaten egg, then roll them in bread-crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the breaded fingers in heated hog's lard until they are a bright light color.

  2. Sprinkle vanilla sugar over the fried fingers and serve hot.

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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Brioche + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together70 recipes

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

  5. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar 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

Brioche paste
Forms the soft, enriched crumb that makes up the body of each finger.
Cream
Soaks into the baked fingers, adding moisture and richness to the interior.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the bread-crumbs adhere to the fingers.
Bread-crumbs
Forms a crisp outer coating that browns when fried.
Hog's lard
Conducts heat in the frying step, crisping and browning the coating.
Vanilla sugar
Adds sweetness and aroma to the finished fingers.

The step that matters

Soaking until completely cold. The fingers must soak long enough to absorb the cream fully; if they are still warm or undersoaked, the cream may not be evenly absorbed and the coating can become soggy or uneven during frying.

“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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