Skip to main content
Dessert

Violet Parfait

A chilled dessert made with gelatin, sugar syrup, egg whites, violet extract, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Violet Parfait

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup by dissolving sugar in boiling water and cook until it threads.

  2. Soften gelatine in cold water, then dissolve it in the hot syrup and strain.

Build the parfait

  1. Pour the syrup slowly over the beaten egg whites and beat until nearly cold.

  2. Add violet extract, then fold in the whipped cream.

  3. Turn the mixture into a mold, pack it in ice and salt, and let it stand for 4 to 6 hours.

  4. Unmold and garnish with fresh or candied violets.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 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 whites
Whipped to foam, they give the parfait its light, airy structure.
Gelatine
Sets the syrup as it cools, giving the parfait a firm but tender body.
Sugar
Cooked into a syrup, it sweetens the dish and helps stabilise the foam.
Cream
Whipped and folded in, it adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Pour the hot syrup slowly over the egg whites. Pouring slowly while beating lets the hot syrup cook the whites gently and form a stable, glossy foam. Pouring too fast can deflate the whites or cause uneven cooking.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes