Skip to main content
Dessert

Italian Cream

A chilled gelatin dessert made with cream, milk, sweet cider, rosewater, sugar, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and gelatin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Italian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatin

  1. Dissolve the gelatin by first soaking it in cold water, then adding boiling water.

Make the cream

  1. In a bowl, mix the cream and milk together.

  2. Add the sugar and sweet cider to the cream mixture.

  3. Strain the dissolved gelatin and add it to the mixture, beating thoroughly.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into jelly molds and refrigerate until firm.

  2. Once set, turn out the Italian cream from the molds.

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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Gelatin
Sets the liquid cream into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
Thick sweet cream
Provides richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream.
Milk
Thins the cream and adds dairy flavour and moisture.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatin. Gelatin must be fully dissolved and strained before it is mixed in, because undissolved granules leave lumps and uneven setting. Soaking it in cold water first lets it hydrate evenly before the boiling water melts it.

“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.

More italian cream recipes

Custard 4Fudge 3Ice 3 See all 168 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes