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Dessert

Ratafia Cream

A sweet cream dessert flavored with fruit leaves, brandy, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Infuse the cream

  1. Boil the leaves in the cream for 5 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Let it cool.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks.

  2. Strain the beaten yolks into the cooled cream.

  3. Add the sugar and brandy.

  4. Stir the mixture quickly.

  5. Scald the mixture over low heat until thick.

  6. Stir the mixture constantly.

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. Peach + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

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

  3. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

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

  4. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Heavy cream
Forms the rich, fatty base that gives the finished cream its body and smooth texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they heat and set, giving the custard its structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the richness of the cream and yolks.
Brandy
Adds a warm, aromatic flavor to the finished cream.
Peach, nectarine, or laurel leaves
Steeped in the cream, they flavor it with a subtle aroma.

The step that matters

Scald the mixture over low heat until thick. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins heat and set, but too much heat or too little stirring can curdle them into a grainy texture. Low heat and constant stirring let the custard thicken evenly and stay smooth.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, sugar, brandy. 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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