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Dessert

Fruit Cream

A chilled dessert made with milk, eggs, sugar, isinglass, and vanilla or rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Fruit Cream

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 ↓

Fruit Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the isinglass in cold water for 2 hours.

  2. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  3. Beat the eggs and mix in the sugar.

  4. When the milk has a froth, pour it over the egg mixture while stirring.

Thicken and set

  1. Return the mixture to the double boiler, add the drained isinglass, and stir until thickened.

  2. Add flavoring, pour into molds, and chill on ice.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 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

Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that firms the cream as it cools.
Eggs
Add richness and help thicken the custard base when gently heated.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the cream and carries the flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and softens the set slightly.

The step that matters

Pouring the milk into the eggs while stirring. Adding hot milk to eggs too quickly can scramble them. Pouring slowly while stirring tempers the eggs so they blend smoothly into the custard.

“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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