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Desserts, Custards and Creams

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Desserts, Custards and Creams

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Let the mixture stand until somewhat cool.

  2. Add ½ cup of thickly whipped cream to the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold in alternate layers.

  4. Set the mold on broken ice to chill.

  5. When ready, turn out onto a dish.

  6. Top with a ball of stiffly whipped cream sweetened and flavored with vanilla essence.

  7. Lightly sprinkle with chopped pistachio nuts.

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. Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Vanilla + pistachiotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together407 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Cream + pistachiotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together634 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Cream and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,301 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

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, pistachio, nuts):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Avocadofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pistachio, nuts. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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