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Dessert

Vanilla Cream

A gelatin-based vanilla custard made with egg yolks, egg whites, sugar, and tartaric acid, set in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Vanilla Cream

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 ↓

Vanilla Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Soak the gelatin in 1 pint of cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Add 1 pint of boiling water and 1 cup of sugar.

  3. Cook until it thickens to a jelly consistency.

  4. Slowly stir in the beaten yolks of 3 eggs.

  5. Add tartaric acid to taste.

  6. Remove from heat.

  7. Fold in the beaten egg whites until stiff.

  8. Flavor with vanilla.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into molds.

  2. Refrigerate until set.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and add body and a custard-like richness.
Egg whites
Beaten until stiff and folded in, they lighten the cream with trapped air.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the tartness of the acid.
Tartaric acid
Adds a sharp, tangy note that brightens the sweet flavor.

The step that matters

Slowly stir in the beaten yolks. Adding hot yolks too quickly can scramble them into lumps. Stirring slowly while the mixture is hot lets the yolks blend in smoothly and thicken it evenly.

“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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