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Dessert

Mock Cream

A custard-like dessert made from milk, egg whites, and a yolk, heated and chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mock Cream

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Whisk the egg whites and yolk together until just combined.

  2. Gradually stir the egg mixture into the milk.

  3. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it comes to a slight boil.

Cool and chill

  1. Remove from heat and continue stirring until it cools.

  2. Strain through a fine sieve and place on ice to chill.

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 + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Set and thicken the milk as they cook, giving the mixture a creamy body.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps emulsify the mixture, smoothing its texture.
New milk
Forms the base of the cream and provides most of its liquid volume.

The step that matters

Heating until a slight boil. Stir constantly over medium heat. Egg proteins can scramble and curdle if the mixture overheats or sits still on the bottom of the pan, so the cream loses its smooth texture.

“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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