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Dessert

Italian Cream

A chilled lemon and orange cream flavored with brandy and sweetened with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Italian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the isinglass in the water as directed for Lemon Cream.

  2. Grate the peel of the lemon and orange into a bowl, then scrape it off.

Make the cream

  1. Add the juice of one lemon and half the juice of another lemon to the bowl.

  2. Stir in the brandy and heavy cream, then whisk until frothy.

  3. Add enough powdered sugar to sweeten the mixture.

  4. Incorporate the dissolved isinglass and mix well.

Set and chill

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set, about one hour.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Isinglass
Sets the mixture into a firm, sliceable body as it cools.
Heavy cream
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Lemon
Provides acidity and bright flavor that balances the sweetness and cream.
Orange
Its peel adds aromatic citrus oil and fragrance.
Brandy
Adds an aromatic, warming flavor that complements the citrus.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and softens the sharpness of the citrus.

The step that matters

Incorporate the dissolved isinglass and mix well.. Isinglass sets as it cools, so it must be fully dissolved and evenly blended while the mixture is still liquid. Otherwise it forms lumps or uneven pockets of firmness instead of a uniform set.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, brandy, cream, 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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