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Dessert

Maple Parfait

A chilled maple custard dessert made with eggs, maple syrup, cream, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Maple syrup and cream work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 607 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Maple Parfait

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Slowly pour the beaten eggs into the hot maple syrup, stirring constantly.

  3. Cook the mixture until it coats the back of a spoon, stirring to prevent burning.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then add the thick cream.

Whip and freeze

  1. Whip the mixture until thick.

  2. Pack the parfait in ice with plenty of coarse sea salt and let it stand for 4 to 5 hours.

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. Maple syrup + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together607 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + maple syruptop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set gently when cooked.
Hot maple syrup
Provides the sweetness and maple flavour of the parfait.
Thick cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and body once whipped.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard without scrambling it. Egg proteins set at moderate heat and curdle if overheated, so the mixture must be stirred constantly and cooked only until it coats the back of a spoon, which signals it has thickened.

“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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