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 ↓
Kiselle
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Stew the fresh fruit and strain off the juice.
Sweeten the juice to taste.
Measure the juice and heat it again.
Thicken and set
For every pint of juice, mix 4 tablespoons of cornstarch with a little cold water.
When the juice boils, stir in the cornstarch mixture and continue stirring for about 5 minutes until smooth.
Pour the mixture into rinsed molds and set in a cold place to harden.
Serve
Once firm, turn out and serve with cream and sugar.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fresh fruit
- Provides the juice that gives the dessert its flavour and colour.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the hot juice as its starch swells, so the mixture sets firm when cooled.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a soft contrast to the tart fruit when served.
The step that matters
Stirring the cornstarch into the boiling juice. Cornstarch must be fully dispersed in cold water first and then stirred into boiling juice; otherwise it clumps. Continued stirring keeps it smooth as the starch swells and thickens the liquid.
“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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