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Dessert

Russe Cream

A custard dessert made with milk, eggs, sugar, gelatin, and vanilla, folded with beaten egg whites and served with sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Russe Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Soak the gelatine in ½ cup of water for 30 minutes.

  2. In a bowl, mix the sugar, milk, egg yolks, and soaked gelatine.

  3. Place the mixture in a double boiler and cook for 20 minutes.

Finish and set

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the custard after removing it from heat.

  2. Add vanilla flavoring and pour the mixture into molds.

Serve

  1. Serve with sugar and cream or custard.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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 custard into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
Eggs
Thicken the custard when cooked and the whites add airy lightness when beaten and folded in.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and creamy richness of the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the milk and eggs.

The step that matters

Folding the beaten egg whites into the custard. Fold gently after the custard has left the heat and cooled slightly. Hot custard deflates the whites, and overmixing knocks out the air that gives the dessert its lightness.

“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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