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Dessert

Chocolate Spanish Cream

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Spanish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Hydrate the gelatine in cold water and let it stand for 30 minutes.

  2. Scald the milk and add the hydrated gelatine; stir until dissolved.

  3. Separate the eggs. Beat the yolks until thick, then add the sugar.

  4. Pour the scalded milk onto the yolk mixture.

Make the custard

  1. Melt the chocolate and add it to the milk mixture, cooking as you would for custard.

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

  3. Place the mixture in a pan of water and beat until it thickens.

Set

  1. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until 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.

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

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

  2. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard, and whipped whites lighten the texture.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the dessert.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Chocolate
Adds rich chocolate flavour and colour to the custard.

The step that matters

Adding the whites and thickening over water. Folding in the stiffly beaten whites gently preserves their air, which gives a light texture. Beating the custard over water while it cools thickens it gradually, and overheating can curdle the eggs.

“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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