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Raspberry Creams

Small raspberry jam balls coated in pinkened French cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Raspberry Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the centres

  1. Mix enough confectioners' sugar into a teaspoon of raspberry jam to form a thick paste.

  2. Roll the mixture into balls between your palms.

Coat and set

  1. Melt French cream in a teacup set in a basin of boiling water, stirring until smooth.

  2. Add a few drops of cochineal coloring or raspberry juice to tint the cream pink, but do not add too much.

  3. Dip the balls into the melted cream, coating them twice.

  4. Set aside to harden, stirring the melted cream occasionally to prevent it from turning back into syrup.

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. Raspberry + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + raspberrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,101 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

Confectioners' sugar
Stiffens the jam into a thick paste that holds its shape when rolled.
Raspberry jam
Provides the main raspberry flavour and sweetness for the centres.
French cream
Forms the outer coating that melts smooth and then hardens as it cools.

The step that matters

Stirring the melted cream while it sets. If the cream is left still as it cools, it can lose its smooth emulsion and turn back into a grainy, syrupy state instead of a firm coating. Occasional stirring keeps it smooth and even as it hardens.

Swap the raspberry

The recipe marks raspberry as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Raspberrythe original
  4. Raisinfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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