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Dessert

Royal Cream

A gelatin-based custard made with milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and whipped cream.

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 ↓

Royal Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in 1 quart of milk for 1 hour.

  2. Beat the yolks of 3 eggs and add ½ cup of sugar.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler until hot.

  2. Stir in the sugar and egg mixture until creamy.

  3. Remove the mixture from heat and cool it.

  4. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  5. Beat the mixture well for 5 minutes and add ½ teaspoon of vanilla.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold and chill until cold.

  2. Serve with whipped or sweetened cream.

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

Gelatine
Sets the mixture into a firm, sliceable structure as it chills.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard is cooked and set in.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the custard, adding body and a rich colour.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the yolks.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while stiff. Folding gently, and into a cooled mixture, keeps the foam from collapsing, so the set dessert stays light rather than dense.

“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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