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Dessert

Italian Cream

A chilled custard made with cream, sugar, lemon, wine, and gelatin.

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

Italian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cream mixture

  1. Divide the cream into two bowls.

  2. In one bowl, mix the sugar, lemon juice, and white wine.

  3. Add the other pint of cream and stir vigorously.

Set and chill

  1. Boil the isinglass or gelatin with the water until reduced by half.

  2. Stir the lukewarm mixture into the cream mixture.

  3. Pour into a glass dish and let it congeal.

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

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

  4. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Cream + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,760 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides the rich body and fat that give the dessert its smooth, creamy texture.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the liquid mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Isinglass or gelatin
Sets the mixture as it cools, giving it a firm, sliceable structure.

The step that matters

Boil the isinglass or gelatin with the water until reduced by half. Gelatin must be fully dissolved and then cooled to lukewarm before mixing into the cream. If it is too hot it can thin the cream, and if it is too cool it may set in lumps, so the cream will not congeal evenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, white wine, gelatin):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, white wine, gelatin. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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