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Brandy Filling

A walnut and milk filling flavored with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and rum work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 967 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Brandy Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Boil the milk with the chopped walnuts.

  2. Thicken the mixture with the egg yolks and cornstarch, stirring until thickened.

  3. Sweeten to taste and add rum or brandy.

Cool and use

  1. Let cool before applying to the cake.

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. Milk + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Milk + walnuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Walnut + rumtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together114 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Walnut + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,037 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the filling and carries the other ingredients.
Chopped walnuts
Add nutty flavour and a bit of texture to the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as their proteins set with gentle heat, and add richness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid as its starch granules swell and gelatinize when heated.

The step that matters

Thickening with the egg yolks and cornstarch. Egg yolk proteins set with gentle heat and can curdle if the mixture gets too hot or is not stirred. Cornstarch needs to heat fully to reach its full thickness, so the filling should be stirred over steady heat until it is smooth and thickened.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, rum):

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Cocoafits about as well
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, rum. 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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