Why it works: Vanilla and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Flan De Praises a LA Suisse
Ingredients
Directions
Make the ice cream topping
Whip the cream and mix it with the vanilla ice cream.
Place the ice cream in a silver fruit bowl and arrange the strawberries on top.
Garnish with crystallized violets and serve immediately.
Prepare the crust
Roll out the puff pastry to ⅛ inch thick and line a flan ring.
Place the flan ring on a baking sheet, decorate the edges, and prick the bottom to prevent blistering.
Fill the crust with raw rice or dried peas and bake until done.
Fill and finish the tart
Mix the strawberries with kirschwasser and castor sugar.
Remove the rice or peas from the baked crust and fill it with the strawberry mixture.
Top with a lattice design of meringue and bake for about 10 minutes.
Once cool, add red currant jelly in the center of the meringue.
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.
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Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Vanilla + red curranttop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).
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Vanilla + ricetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,352 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,301 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
- Puff pastry
- Forms a crisp, flaky shell that holds the filling.
- Strawberries
- Provide the fruit flavor and juicy filling of the tart.
- Meringue
- Forms a crisp, golden lattice on top of the tart.
- Cream
- Whipped to add a light, airy texture to the topping.
- Vanilla ice cream
- Adds sweetness and creaminess to the cream topping.
- Castor sugar
- Sweetens the strawberries and draws out their juices.
The step that matters
Prick the pastry and fill it with rice or peas before baking. Pricking lets steam escape so the base does not blister, and the weights hold the sides up so the crust keeps its shape while it sets.
Swap the red currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, vanilla, sugar, rice):
- Coconutfits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Blueberryfits better
- Red currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, vanilla, sugar, rice. 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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