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Ratafia Cream

A custard-like cream made with thick milk, egg yolks, ratafia, and sugar, thickened over low heat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Ratafia Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the laurel leaves in the thick milk and discard the leaves.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with a little cold cream and sugar to taste.

  3. Thicken the milk with the egg mixture over low heat, stirring continuously until thickened, but do not let it boil.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture into china dishes and let it cool before serving.

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 + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Milk + laureltop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 yolks
Thicken the milk as they set with gentle heat, giving the cream a smooth, rich body.
Thick milk
Forms the base of the cream, carrying the flavour and setting into a custard.
Laurel leaves
Infuse the milk with a subtle aromatic flavour before being removed.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the richness of the milk and yolks.

The step that matters

Thicken over low heat without boiling. Egg yolks set at gentle temperatures; if the mixture boils, the proteins curdle and the cream turns grainy instead of smooth. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and prevents scorching on the base of the pan.

“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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