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Dessert

Nut Cream

A chilled dessert of whipped cream, nuts, and chocolate sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and arrowroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 179 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Nut Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the nut cream

  1. In a bowl, combine whipped cream, chopped nuts, powdered sugar, and bitter almond extract.

  2. Stir in the soaked and strained gelatin until the mixture begins to thicken.

  3. Pour the mixture into individual molds and refrigerate until hardened.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, heat milk in a saucepan.

  2. Thicken the milk with arrowroot mixed with cold water, then add sugar.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in melted chocolate and vanilla.

Serve

  1. Serve the nut cream cold with the chocolate sauce.

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. Almond + arrowroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Nuts + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

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

  3. Cream + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whipped cream
Provides richness and a light, airy texture to the mixture.
Gelatin
Sets the cream so it holds its shape when chilled in molds.
Chopped nuts
Add body, crunch and nutty flavor to the cream.
Arrowroot
Thickens the sauce so it coats the back of a spoon.
Melted chocolate
Adds richness and deep flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the gelatin. Gelatin must be fully softened and strained, then stirred in while the mixture is still warm and fluid so it blends evenly. If it is added too late or unevenly, it sets in lumps or the cream will not firm properly when chilled.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, nuts, sugar, almond, gelatin, milk, chocolate):

  1. Arrowrootthe original
  2. Sweet potatofits about as well
  3. Beetrootfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, nuts, sugar, almond, gelatin, milk, chocolate. 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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