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Dessert

Italian Cream

A gelatinous dessert made from whipped cream, powdered sugar, lemon juice, wine, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Italian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream mixture

  1. Whip the cream until well whipped.

  2. In a bowl, mix the whipped cream, powdered sugar, lemon juice, and wine.

Add the isinglass and set

  1. Boil the isinglass with water until reduced by half.

  2. Allow the isinglass mixture to cool to lukewarm, then stir it into the cream mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a glass dish and let it harden.

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

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

  2. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Cream + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Cream
Whipped into trapped air and fat, giving the dessert a light, creamy body.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the cream without grittiness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Wine
Contributes aroma and flavour depth to the cream.
Isinglass
A gelatin-like protein that sets as it cools, firming the cream into a solid dish.

The step that matters

Cooling the isinglass to lukewarm before stirring it in. Isinglass is a protein that gels as it cools. If it is still hot, it can deflate the whipped cream and thin the mixture. If it is already cold and firm, it can set in lumps instead of blending evenly through the cream.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, wine. 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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