Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Spanish Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Dissolve the gelatin in 3 pints of milk by boiling.
Beat the egg yolks and mix with the sugar.
Add the yolk mixture to the boiling milk and stir until it thickens.
Set aside to cool.
Finish and set
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Fold the stiff egg whites into the custard when it is almost cold.
Pour the mixture into moulds and flavor to your taste before adding the egg whites.
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.
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 milk mixture as it cools, giving the cream a firm, sliceable body.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the milk custard and add richness and a smooth texture.
- Egg whites
- Beaten until stiff and folded in, they lighten the cream with trapped air.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the gelatine and yolks set and thicken.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cream and balances the richness of the yolks and milk.
The step that matters
Fold the stiff egg whites into the custard when it is almost cold. If the custard is still hot, the whites can deflate and cook or lose their air, and if it has already set, they will not blend in smoothly. Cooling it until just barely set keeps the foam intact and the cream light.
“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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