Skip to main content
Dessert

Prince of Wales Dessert

A layered sponge cake dessert soaked in sherry, thickened with cornflour and arrowroot, topped with currant jelly, pistachios, whipped cream, cherries, and citron peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Arrowroot and pistachio share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Prince of Wales Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Dip stale sponge cakes in sherry or syrup.

  2. Line a mold with the dipped cakes.

Make the custard

  1. Mix cornflour and arrowroot together.

  2. Add boiling milk and cook for a few minutes.

  3. Stir in vanilla.

  4. Pour the mixture into the lined mold.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once cold, turn out the dessert onto a serving plate.

  2. Top the dessert with a large spoonful of red currant jelly.

  3. Sprinkle chopped pistachio nuts over the jelly.

  4. Soak the cakes in raspberry juice or wine.

  5. Layer the soaked cakes in a glass dish.

  6. Fill the dish with the mixture.

  7. Spread whipped cream on top.

  8. Decorate with cherries and chopped citron peel.

  9. Serve very cold in the glass dish.

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. Arrowroot + pistachiotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Red currant + raspberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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

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

  4. Vanilla + raspberrytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Arrowroot + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together242 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale sponge cakes
Absorb the sherry or syrup and give the dessert its structure.
Cornflour
Starch that thickens the boiled milk into a set custard.
Arrowroot
Second starch that adds thickening and a smooth, clear set.
Milk
Liquid base that the starches thicken into the custard.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a glossy finish to the top.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a soft, light topping.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thickened. Starch granules only swell and thicken when heated in liquid. If the cornflour and arrowroot milk is not cooked long enough, the custard stays thin and will not set firmly once cold.

Swap the raspberry

The recipe marks raspberry as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, arrowroot, milk, vanilla, red currant, pistachio, nuts):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Cherryfits about as well
  3. Raspberrythe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, arrowroot, milk, vanilla, red currant, pistachio, nuts. 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

Currant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipesRaspberry JamRaspberry Jam150 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesRaspberry CreamRaspberry Cream82 recipes