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Dessert

Whim Wham

A layered dessert of cream, wine, lemon peel, biscuits, currant jelly, citron peel, and candied orange peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Whim Wham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cream

  1. Sweeten the cream and mix in the white wine and lemon peel.

  2. Whisk the mixture to a froth, then drain it through a sieve.

Layer and serve

  1. In a deep glass dish, layer the froth, thinly sliced Naples biscuits, and red currant jelly.

  2. Repeat the layers, finishing with the froth on top.

  3. Pour the remaining cream into the dish.

  4. Garnish with citron and candied orange peel cut into straws.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Red currant + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Biscuit + red curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Lemon + red curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Whisks into a light froth that forms the airy body of the dish.
Naples biscuits
Soak up the wine and cream, giving the layers a soft, cake-like texture.
White wine
Adds acidity and a light, aromatic flavour to the cream.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tartness between the layers.

The step that matters

Whisking the cream to a froth. Cream must be whipped until it holds its shape but not past the point of turning grainy. Under-whisking leaves the froth too loose to layer, while over-whisking can make the cream separate. Draining through a sieve removes liquid so the froth stays firm.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, white wine, lemon, biscuit, orange):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Blackberryfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, white wine, lemon, biscuit, orange. 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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