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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A custard dessert made with milk, gelatin, egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Spanish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Soak the gelatin in the milk for 1 hour.

  2. Heat the milk and gelatin mixture in a double boiler, stirring as it warms.

  3. Once hot, pour the mixture over the beaten egg yolks and sugar.

  4. Return to the double boiler and heat until scalding.

  5. Strain through a fine cloth and add flavoring.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a wet mold and 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.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  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).

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 milk mixture into a firm, sliceable custard when chilled.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the gelatine and gives the custard its body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard with fat and help thicken it when gently heated.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the milk and yolks.

The step that matters

Return to the double boiler and heat until scalding. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated, so keep the heat gentle and stir while the custard thickens slightly, without letting it boil.

“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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