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Dessert

Brandy Cream

A chilled dessert made with cream, lemon juice, sugar, brandy, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Brandy Cream

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 ↓

Brandy Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in ½ cup of water.

Make the cream

  1. Whisk the cream until slightly thickened.

  2. Add the lemon juice and sugar to the cream, then mix in the brandy.

  3. Stir in the dissolved gelatine.

  4. Strain the mixture and cool it.

Set

  1. Pour into a mold and set in the refrigerator until 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Lemon and sugar 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 to a light body, its fat gives the dessert its rich, smooth texture.
Gelatine
Forms a gel as it cools, giving the cream its firm, sliceable set.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the lemon juice.
Brandy
Contributes a strong aroma and warm flavour to the cream.

The step that matters

Stir in the dissolved gelatine. Gelatine must be fully liquid when added, then mixed evenly through the cream. If it cools and begins to set before blending, it forms lumps or strands, and the cream will not set smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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