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Dessert

Another Cream Filling

A sweet cream filling made with powdered sugar, hot water, egg white, raisins, walnuts, and coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Walnut and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 606 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Another Cream Filling

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine powdered sugar and hot water, then let them simmer.

  2. Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form, then mix it with the sugar mixture.

  3. Once cooled, fold in the chopped raisins, chopped walnuts, and grated coconut.

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. Walnut + coconuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Raisin + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + coconuttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together183 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Whipped to stiff peaks, it traps air that gives the filling a light, airy body.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves in the hot water to sweeten the filling and help it set smoothly.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form. Stiff peaks hold air in the foam, which gives the filling its lightness. Under-beaten egg white deflates and makes the filling runny, while over-beaten egg white turns dry and grainy and separates.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, walnut, coconut):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, walnut, coconut. 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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