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Dessert

Sultana Roll

A rolled dessert made with Charlotte Russe mixture, raisins, and served with a claret sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,768 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Sultana Roll

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble the roll

  1. Layer the Charlotte Russe mixture in a mold.

  2. Add a layer of raisins soaked in brandy.

  3. Repeat layers of Charlotte Russe mixture and raisins.

  4. Pack the mold in ice and salt.

Make the claret sauce

  1. To make the claret sauce, boil sugar and water for 7-8 minutes.

  2. Add claret to the boiled mixture and stir.

Serve

  1. Serve the Sultana Roll with claret sauce.

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. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Charlotte russe mixture
Forms the creamy body of the roll, setting as it chills in the mold.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness between the creamy layers.
Brandy
Soaks into the raisins, adding aroma and a warm, boozy flavour.
Sugar
Dissolves into the boiled water to make a sweet syrup for the sauce.
Claret
Flavours the sauce with wine, adding acidity and fruity depth to the sweet syrup.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar. 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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