Skip to main content
Dessert

Another Cream Biscuit

A light, airy biscuit made with egg yolks, egg whites, sugar, thick cream, and optional vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Another Cream Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Combine egg yolks and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Add vanilla extract if desired.

  3. Whip egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Gently fold whipped egg whites and thick cream into yolk mixture.

  5. Spoon mixture into paper cases.

Bake and serve

  1. Ice the biscuits and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 5 minutes.

  2. Serve immediately as they will sink quickly.

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

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

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

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

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the mixture while setting.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lightens the batter and helps it rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Thick cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving a tender, rich crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Overmixing or stirring vigorously knocks out the air bubbles in the whites, so the batter loses its lift. Fold gently, cutting through the mixture with a spatula, to keep the structure that lets the biscuits rise in the oven.

“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.

More cream biscuit recipes

Sour 9 See all 21 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes