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Dessert

Vienna Cream

Vienna Cream is a dessert made with egg whites, red currant jelly, raspberry jelly, and icing sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and raspberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 155 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells fruity, sweet. The science ↓

Vienna Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. In a bowl, combine egg whites, red currant jelly, raspberry jelly, and icing sugar.

  2. Beat the mixture until it forms stiff peaks.

Serve

  1. Serve in a glass bowl.

  2. Optionally, use apricot jelly for variation.

  3. Add fruit coloring for a vibrant appearance.

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. Red currant + raspberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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

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

  3. Raspberry + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,101 recipes

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

  4. Egg + raspberrytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the cream its light, airy structure.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity while flavouring the cream.
Raspberry jelly
Adds sweetness, fruit flavour and body to the cream.
Icing sugar
Sweetens the cream and helps stabilise the whipped foam.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture until it forms stiff peaks. Egg white foam needs enough beating to trap air and hold its shape. Under-beaten whites stay runny and collapse, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Red currantthe original
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, raspberry, 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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