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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A chilled gelatin-based custard made with milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Spanish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in 1 pint of milk for 1 hour.

  2. Boil 1 quart of milk.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and place in a deep bowl.

  4. Beat the egg yolks with sugar to taste until light.

Make the custard

  1. Stir the yolks and sugar into the boiling milk with the soaked gelatine.

  2. Once it boils again, remove from heat and pour over the egg whites.

  3. Flavor with vanilla.

Set

  1. Wet a mold with cold water, pour in the mixture, and set aside to congeal.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture so it holds its shape when chilled.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff foam, they lighten the texture of the dessert.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk mixture and add richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the gelatine and eggs set into.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot milk over the egg whites. Pouring too quickly or from too high can deflate the stiff egg whites, losing the light texture the dessert depends on.

“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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