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Dessert

Fruit Cream

A chilled custard with milk, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla, wine, brandy, almonds, citron, peaches or raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Fruit Cream

Why it works: Vanilla and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fruit Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine milk and sugar in a saucepan and heat until warm.

  2. Whisk egg yolks in a bowl, then gradually add the warm milk mixture, stirring constantly.

  3. Cook over low heat until thickened, then remove from heat.

  4. Stir in vanilla and wine, then let cool.

Freeze and finish

  1. Pour the custard into a freezer container and freeze until half frozen.

  2. Add pounded almonds, chopped citron, brandy, and chopped peaches or raisins, and mix well.

  3. Freeze again until fully 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Vanilla + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together558 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + peachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

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 as they set and give it a rich, smooth body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the yolks thicken.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen cream.
Pounded almonds
Add nutty flavor and body to the frozen cream.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and lowers the freezing point so the cream stays softer.

The step that matters

Cook the custard over low heat. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set, but high heat can scramble them into lumps. Gentle heat and constant stirring keep the custard smooth.

“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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