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Dessert

Ratafia

A sweet dessert made with crushed Ratafias, sponge cakes, whipped cream, and egg yolks, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ratafia

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a basin, combine crushed Ratafias and sponge cakes.

  2. Work in whipped cream and sugar until well mixed.

  3. Add Ratafia and egg yolks, mixing thoroughly.

Steam and serve

  1. Grease a mould with butter and line it with dried cherries.

  2. Pour the mixture into the mould, tie a cloth over it, and place it in boiling water.

  3. Boil for about 1.5 hours, then carefully turn it out and 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ratafias
Provide the dominant almond-like flavour and bulk of the cake's crumb.
Sponge cakes
Soak up cream and liquid, giving the cake a soft, moist body.
Whipped cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the cake tender after steaming.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness, helping it set firm when cooked.
Dried cherries
Lining the mould gives a fruity flavour and decorative surface on the turned-out cake.

The step that matters

Boiling the mould. The mould must sit in gently boiling water for the full time, with the cloth tied securely. Too little heat or water leaves the egg-thickened mixture under-set, while water entering the mould makes the texture watery.

“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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