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Dessert

Italian Cream in Shape

A lemon cream set in a mold using isinglass, brandy, and thick cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Italian Cream in Shape

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Rub the rind of one lemon on a lump of sugar and scrape it into a deep pan.

  2. Add the juice of two lemons, brandy, and very thick cream.

  3. Whisk quickly until it forms a thick froth.

  4. Stir in sifted lump sugar to your taste.

  5. Dissolve isinglass as directed for lemon cream and stir it in.

Set and serve

  1. When it begins to set, pour it into a quart mold.

  2. After one hour, it will be ready to turn out.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Brandy + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Very thick cream
Provides richness and body, and whisks into a thick froth that gives the cream its airy structure.
Isinglass
Gelatinous setting agent that firms the cream so it holds its shape when turned out.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the sharpness of the lemon.

The step that matters

Whisking the cream to a froth. Whisking must be quick and stop at a thick froth; over-whisking heavy cream can turn it grainy or buttery, while under-whisking leaves the texture loose and unstable.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, cream. 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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