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Dessert

Cherry Cream

A chilled dessert made with cream, milk, gelatin, sugar, egg yolks, preserved cherries, and cherry juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cherry Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatin and custard base

  1. Soak the gelatin in the milk for 1 hour.

  2. Heat the milk until the gelatin is thoroughly melted.

  3. Beat the egg yolks.

  4. Mix the beaten yolks with the cream and sugar.

  5. Pour the mixture into a jug.

  6. Set the jug in a saucepan of boiling water.

  7. Stir until the mixture coats the back of a spoon.

Cool and set

  1. Pour the mixture into a basin and let it cool.

  2. Add the strained gelatin to the cooled mixture.

  3. Fold in the cherries.

  4. Pour in the cherry syrup.

  5. Serve in a glass dish, garnished with cherries.

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. Gelatin + sugartop 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. Milk + cherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they cook gently, giving a smooth, rich custard texture.
Gelatin
Sets the cooled cream so it holds its shape when served.
Thick cream
Provides richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream and yolks.
Preserved cherries
Add fruit flavour and texture throughout the set cream.

The step that matters

Stir until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the mixture overheats it can curdle and turn grainy. Heating gently in a bowl over simmering water and stopping when it coats a spoon keeps it smooth.

Swap the cherry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Cherrythe original

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