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Dessert

Italian Cream

A custard dessert made with eggs, milk, gelatin, sugar, vanilla, and lined with cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Italian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water until dissolved.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, egg yolks, and dissolved gelatine; cook until thick like custard.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the hot custard.

  3. Add vanilla extract for flavor.

Set and serve

  1. Line your moulds with cake and fill with the custard mixture.

  2. 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 + 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. Egg + milktop 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard when cooked, and whipped whites add lightness and structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that cooks with the yolks into a thick custard.
Gelatine
Sets the custard so it holds its shape when chilled.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the custard.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thick. Egg yolk proteins set with heat, so cooking too hard or too fast can curdle or scramble the custard. Cooking gently and stirring keeps it smooth and evenly thickened before the gelatine sets it.

“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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