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Dessert

Spanish Cream

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Spanish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in 3 pints of milk by boiling.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the sugar until light.

  3. Add the yolk mixture to the boiling milk and stir until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

Finish and set

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the custard when it is almost cold.

  2. Pour the mixture into moulds and refrigerate until set.

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

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

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

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

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

Gelatine
Sets the milk mixture into a firm, sliceable custard when chilled.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk and add richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks and folded in, they lighten the custard's texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff and folded in while the custard is almost cold. If the custard is too hot, the whites deflate and the airy texture is lost; if it is already set, they will not blend in evenly.

“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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