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Dessert

Bavarian Cream

A chilled custard dessert made with sweet cream, egg yolks, sugar, gelatin, and flavored with vanilla or lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and gelatin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Bavarian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin in warm water.

  3. Dip the mold in cold water before filling.

Make the custard

  1. Stir the dissolved gelatin into the boiling hot cream.

  2. Add the egg yolk and sugar mixture.

  3. Cook until it thickens.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Season with vanilla or lemon to taste.

Finish and set

  1. Fold in the whipped cold cream gradually.

  2. Whip the egg whites for the topping.

  3. Set the filled mold in a cold place.

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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Cream + vanillatop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they cook with the cream.
Gelatin
Sets the cream so the cooled dessert holds its shape when unmolded.
Sweet cream
Provides the fat and body that make the dessert rich and smooth.
Whipped cold cream
Adds airiness and lightness to the set cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Stirring the dissolved gelatin into the boiling hot cream. Gelatin must be fully dissolved and evenly mixed into the hot cream, or it will set in lumps and the texture will be uneven once chilled.

“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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