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Dessert

Italian Cream

A gelatin-set custard dessert flavored with lemon rind, ginger, and candied fruits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Italian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in the milk.

  2. Whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form.

Make the custard mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the custard, sugar, grated lemon rind, and chopped candied fruits. Mix thoroughly and strain in the dissolved gelatine.

  2. Stir occasionally until the mixture begins to set.

Mold and serve

  1. Pour into a mold rinsed with cold water.

  2. Turn out when firm.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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 mixture so it holds its shape when turned out of the mold.
Heavy cream
Whipped to stiff peaks, it adds lightness and a rich, creamy texture.
Custard
Provides the creamy base and body of the dessert.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the lemon rind.
Candied fruits and cherries
Add sweetness, chewy texture and colour through the set cream.

The step that matters

Stir occasionally until the mixture begins to set. Gelatine sets as it cools, and stirring keeps the dissolved gelatine evenly distributed. If the mixture is left too long, it can firm unevenly or in layers, and fruit may sink before the set is firm enough to hold it in place.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Peppermintfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, sugar, lemon. 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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