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Dessert

Parfait Au Marasquin {Maraschino Parfait}

A chilled dessert made from egg yolks, sugar syrup, maraschino liqueur, kirschwasser, cream, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Parfait Au Marasquin {Maraschino Parfait}

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar and water, skimming the boiling mixture.

  2. Boil until it becomes a syrup registering 36 degrees on a saccharometer.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a basin and stir in the hot syrup.

  2. Add the two liqueurs.

  3. Whisk over a boiling water bath for about six minutes, ensuring the eggs do not curdle.

  4. Place the basin in a cool place and stir the mixture while it cools.

Freeze

  1. Line a charlotte mold with white paper.

  2. Add the well-whipped cream to the cooled mixture and fill the mold with the mixture.

  3. Cover the mold with paper and seal the mold.

  4. Bury the mold in a pail of crushed ice and freezing salt.

  5. Let it remain for at least two hours.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard base and add richness when gently whisked over heat.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and, boiled with water, forms the syrup that softens the frozen texture.
Cream
Adds fat and air when whipped, giving the parfait a light, smooth texture.
Maraschino liqueur
Adds sweet, aromatic cherry flavour to the parfait.

The step that matters

Whisk the yolks over the water bath without curdling. Egg yolks set when heated, so they can scramble if they get too hot. Gentle heat over simmering water thickens the custard smoothly, and the mixture must be stirred so it does not curdle.

“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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