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Dessert

Cream of Mushrooms

A creamy mushroom soup made by cooking mushrooms, extracting their juice, adding butter, cream, flour, and optional sherry, then topping with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,176 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Cream of Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook hothouse mushrooms in water for nearly 2 hours.

  2. Press the cooked mushrooms to extract juice into the cooking water.

  3. Add small pieces of butter and 1 pint of cream to the mushroom water.

  4. Thicken the mixture with 2 tablespoons of flour or rice flour.

  5. Stir in 2 tablespoons of sherry if desired.

Serve

  1. Pour into cups and top with whipped cream 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. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Hothouse mushrooms
Provide the main flavour and body, with their juice giving the soup its character.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Flour or rice flour
Thickens the liquid so the soup becomes smooth and body-rich.
Sherry
Adds a subtle aroma and a touch of acidity and depth.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with flour. Flour must be fully incorporated and cooked so it thickens smoothly; added unevenly or undercooked, it leaves lumps or a raw starchy taste.

“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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