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Dessert

Barley Cream

A creamy barley dessert made with milk, cream, eggs, flour, and orange‑flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Barley Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley

  1. Boil pearl barley in equal parts milk and water until tender.

  2. Strain the barley and add it to 1 quart of cream; let it boil briefly.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg whites and yolk with 1 tablespoon of fine flour and 2 tablespoons of orange-flower water.

  2. Remove the cream from heat and gradually mix in the egg mixture.

  3. Return to low heat to thicken, sweeten to taste, and serve when cold.

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

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

  2. Barley + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Barley + orangetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together79 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Barley + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Pearl barley
Provides the base body and bulk of the cream as it cooks tender.
Cream
Supplies richness and fat, giving the set dessert a smooth, creamy texture.
Egg whites and yolk
Thicken the cream as they set gently with heat, giving a custard-like body.
Fine flour
Stabilises the egg mixture so it thickens smoothly without curdling.
Orange-flower water
Adds a floral aroma that flavours the cream.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture off the heat. If the eggs meet hot cream directly they can scramble. Removing the cream from heat and mixing in the eggs gradually lets them warm slowly and thicken smoothly.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, milk, cream, egg, flour, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, milk, cream, egg, flour, sugar. 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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