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Dessert

A LA Creme

A chilled dessert made with a butter‑sugar‑flour mixture baked into shapes, topped with a cream filling, cherries, and raspberry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 19,175 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: egg yolk

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.

Make the lace cookies

  1. Combine butter, Demerara sugar, golden syrup, and ginger in a saucepan.

  2. Heat gently until the butter melts.

  3. Sift flour into the saucepan and add lemon juice. Mix well.

  4. Wax a baking pan.

  5. Pour dessert spoonfuls of the mixture into the pan, spaced apart.

  6. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until deep golden brown.

  7. As they begin to set, lift them off with a knife.

  8. Quickly roll each around a slipper mold, rough side out.

  9. Remove the mold once set.

Make the cream and custard

  1. Whip the cream, adding a little sugar and vanilla.

  2. Fill half with white cream and color the rest pink.

  3. Dissolve gelatine in ½ pint of milk.

  4. Mix corn flour with the remaining cold milk.

  5. Combine the milk and gelatine mixture with corn flour, add sugar and flavoring, and boil for 5 minutes.

  6. Strain into egg yolks.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place cherries at the bottom of a mold and fill with the mixture.

  2. Once completely cold, dip the mold in warm water and turn out.

  3. For raspberry sauce, boil 2 tablespoons of raspberry jam with sugar and water for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain and serve.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Vanilla + milktop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together19,175 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + syruptop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and vanilla share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the lace cookies together as they spread and set.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the cookies spread and turn crisp.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown and stay chewy-crisp.
Demerara sugar
Sweetens and helps the cookies brown and crisp as they bake.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped.
Gelatine
Sets the milk mixture so it holds its shape when turned out of the mold.

The step that matters

Baking the lace cookies until deep golden brown. Cookies spread thinly and firm up fast, so they can burn quickly. They must be lifted off while still pliable, because they harden within seconds of leaving the oven.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

  1. Strawberrybetter flavor fit
  2. Peachbetter flavor fit
  3. Figbetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup, vanilla, butter, flour, cream, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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