Skip to main content
Dessert

Ratafia Cream

A custard-like dessert made with milk, bay leaves, Ratafia essence, egg yolks, cream, and sugar, garnished with candied fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Ratafia Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Pour the milk into a saucepan.

  2. Add the bay leaves and essence of Ratafia.

  3. Bring to a boil, then remove the bay leaves.

  4. Beat the egg yolks with the cream and sugar until well combined.

  5. Add the egg mixture to the saucepan and stir continuously over low heat until the mixture thickens, being careful not to boil.

Cool and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a glass dish and let it cool.

  2. Garnish with slices of candied fruits and Ratafias before serving.

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

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

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 yolks
Thicken the cream as they set gently over low heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that is infused with flavour and thickened into the custard.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the custard a softer, smoother mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the aroma of the Ratafia essence.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard over low heat without boiling. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the mixture boils or heats too fast, the proteins scramble and the custard turns grainy or curdled instead of smooth.

“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

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes