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Dessert

Ratafia Cream

A sweet cream dessert flavored with brandy, egg yolks, sugar, and laurel or nectarine leaves.

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

Infuse the cream

  1. Boil the cream with the laurel or nectarine leaves.

  2. Strain the mixture and let it cool.

Make the custard

  1. Add the beaten egg yolks and sugar.

  2. Stir in the brandy and mix well.

  3. Scald the mixture until thick, stirring continuously.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Cream
Provides richness and body, and its fat carries the flavors through the custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set gently with heat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the rich cream and brandy.
Brandy
Adds a warm, spirited aroma and flavor.
Laurel or nectarine leaves
Infuse the cream with a subtle almond-like aroma.

The step that matters

Scald the mixture until thick, stirring continuously. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. If the mixture gets too hot or is left unstirred, the yolks can scramble and curdle, so constant stirring and moderate heat keep the custard 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.

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