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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A custard dessert made with gelatin, milk, eggs, sugar, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Spanish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in the milk and let it stand for one hour.

  2. Heat the mixture on the stove until boiling.

Finish the cream

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar and stir them into the boiling mixture.

  2. Remove from heat and fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Add flavoring to taste.

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. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Gelatin + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Gelatin
Sets the cream as it cools, giving it a firm, wobbly body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base, supplying richness and a creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken the mixture as it heats.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the richness of the yolks.
Egg whites
Folded in at the end, they add lightness and an airy texture.

The step that matters

Adding the yolks to the boiling mixture. Egg yolks can curdle when they meet very hot liquid, so the mixture should be stirred steadily as the yolks go in. Once off the heat, the whites should be folded gently to keep their air.

“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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