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Ratafia Cream

A gelatinous cream dessert flavored with ratafias and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Ratafia Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in ½ cup of cold milk for about ten minutes.

  2. Crush the macaroons and ratafias, then place them in a bowl.

  3. Pour ½ cup of boiling milk over the crushed mixture.

Make the cream

  1. Add the sugar, lemon rind, and dissolved gelatine, stirring until dissolved.

  2. When cool, add the cream and mix well.

Set

  1. Pour into a mould rinsed in cold water and let it set in a cool place.

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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable cream once chilled.
Macaroons
Add crumb body and a sweet almond flavour to the cream.
Ratafias
Add a bitter almond aroma and flavour that suits the dish.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, soft texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the richness of the milk and cream.

The step that matters

When cool, add the cream. Gelatine begins to set as the mixture cools, so the cream should be stirred in while the mixture is still liquid but no longer hot. Adding cream to a very hot mixture can thin it and cause uneven texture.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, cream. 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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