Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Cream

A custard dessert made with milk, eggs, sugar, almond essence, and gelatin.

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

Why it works: Milk and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,800 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Almond Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Warm 3 tablespoons of milk and dissolve the gelatine in it.

  2. In a jug, combine the remaining milk, whisked eggs, sugar, and almond essence.

  3. Place the jug in a saucepan of boiling water, stirring continuously until the mixture thickens without boiling.

Set the cream

  1. Add the dissolved gelatine to the thickened custard and stir well for 1-2 minutes.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mould rinsed with cold water.

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 + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 cream into a soft, sliceable structure as it cools.
Eggs
Thicken the custard through gentle heat and add richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds creaminess.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard without boiling. Egg proteins set gently at moderate heat, so the mixture thickens smoothly. If it boils, the eggs can scramble and turn grainy, ruining the smooth texture.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Walnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, 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.

More almond cream recipes

Cake 41Soup 9Pudding 7Sauce 7Burnt 6Filling 5 See all 69 →

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes