Skip to main content
Dessert

Creole Kisses

A confection of powdered sugar, egg whites, cream, and pecans baked at 350°F until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Creole Kisses

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the powdered sugar with the whipped egg whites.

  2. Beat the mixture together for 30 minutes.

  3. Add the cream and your choice of extract for flavor.

  4. Fold in the chopped pecans.

Drop and dry

  1. Drop a teaspoon of the mixture onto buttered parchment paper.

  2. Allow to dry in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C), but do not let them brown.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Pecans + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,416 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air and give the kisses a light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and adds body, helping it hold its shape as it dries.
Pecans
Add nutty flavor and a bit of crunch to the finished kisses.
Cream
Adds a little moisture and smoothness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Keep the oven gentle. Meringue-style mixtures can brown or weep if overbaked. Gentle, dry heat sets the outside while keeping the inside pale and crisp, so watch closely and remove them as soon as they are dry.

Swap the pecans

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Pecansthe original
  3. Filbertfits about as well
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream, butter. 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.

You might also like

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