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Frosted Codlins and Cream

A dish of boiled codlins coated in butter and sugar, then baked until frosted, served cold with tart cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Frosted Codlins and Cream

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the codlins

  1. Boil the codlins gently in spring water with a little roche alum until they are slightly more than half done.

  2. Peel off the outside skin of the codlins.

Frost and bake

  1. Rub the codlins with oiled butter and sift fine loaf sugar generously over them.

  2. Place the codlins on a tin plate and let them stand in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until the sugar has a frost-like appearance.

Serve

  1. Serve the codlins cold, surrounded by finely perfumed tart cream.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fine large codlins
Provide the main fruit, which softens while cooking and holds its shape when served.
Fine loaf sugar
Forms the frosted, crystalline coating on the outside of the codlins as it dries in the oven.
Oiled butter
Gives a thin fat layer that helps the sugar adhere to the fruit surface.
Tart cream
Adds richness and a cooling contrast to the sharp, sweet fruit.

The step that matters

Baking until the sugar frosts. Sugar dries and crystallises in a slow oven without browning when heat is gentle. Too hot a heat would melt or caramelise the sugar instead of leaving a frosted, dry surface.

“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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