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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A gelatin-based custard made with milk, eggs, sugar, and salt, folded with beaten egg whites and set in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. In a saucepan, combine the milk and gelatine over a kettle of boiling water.

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

  3. Stir the egg yolk mixture into the milk after the gelatine has dissolved.

  4. Add a pinch of salt and stir constantly until the mixture begins to thicken.

Finish and set

  1. Remove from heat and fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Stir for five minutes, then add your desired flavoring.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold and let it cool until set.

Serve

  1. Once set, cut into squares and serve with the gelatine side up.

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into a soft, creamy body.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable custard as it cools.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and thicken it gently when heated with the milk.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add lightness and an airy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the yolks and milk.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolk mixture into the milk gently and keep stirring as it thickens. Egg yolks can scramble if they meet hot liquid too quickly or are left unstirred over heat. Stirring constantly and heating gently keeps the custard smooth and lets it thicken evenly before the egg whites are folded in.

“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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