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Dessert

Vanilla Cream Renversee

A vanilla custard made by combining scalded cream, eggs, sugar, and vanilla, then baking in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Vanilla Cream Renversee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Scald the cream in a bowl over boiling water; if using a vanilla bean, split it and add it to the cream.

  2. Beat the egg and egg yolks in a separate bowl, then mix in the sugar.

  3. Stir the ready cream into the egg mixture and scrape in the seeds from the vanilla bean, discarding the pod.

Bake and set

  1. Butter a mold that holds about 1 ½ pints and pour in the cream mixture.

  2. Place the mold in a deep saucepan filled with hot water, about two-thirds the depth of the mold.

  3. Cover the saucepan and keep it in a hot spot without boiling; shake the mold gently to check for stiffness.

  4. Once set, chill the cream in the mold until ready to serve.

Serve

  1. Turn the cream out onto a platter or shallow glass dish and pour over a rich vanilla custard or caramel.

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 + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

Eggs and egg yolks
Set the custard into a firm, sliceable structure as they cook gently.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the cream and eggs.
Vanilla extract or vanilla bean
Provides the primary vanilla aroma and flavor throughout the custard.

The step that matters

Keep the water bath below boiling. Gentle, indirect heat lets egg proteins set smoothly. Boiling water or high heat makes the custard curdle, turn grainy, or form holes.

“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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