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Dessert

Egg Cream

A custard made from milk, egg yolks, and sugar, topped with a sweetened meringue and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,475 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Egg Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, beat the 3 egg yolks with sugar to taste.

  3. Pour the scalded milk over the egg mixture and stir well.

  4. Place the bowl in a kettle of boiling water and cook until it thickens to a cream-like consistency.

  5. Remove from heat and let cool in a dish.

Top and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the 6 egg whites until stiff.

  2. Add 6 teaspoons of fine sugar and 3 teaspoons of currant jelly to the egg whites, and beat until well combined.

  3. Spread the whipped egg white mixture over the cooled cream.

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 + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

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

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream and sets into a smooth custard when heated with the eggs.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard through gentle heat; whites whip into a stiff foam for the topping.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the whipped egg white topping and helps it hold its stiff structure.
Currant jelly
Adds fruity sweetness and flavor to the whipped egg white topping.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard over boiling water. Egg yolks thicken gently as they warm; if the heat is too high they can curdle or scramble. Cooking in a water bath keeps the temperature moderate so the mixture thickens smoothly.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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.

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