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Dessert

Bavarian Cream

A chilled custard dessert made with cream, egg yolks, gelatin, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Bavarian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatin

  1. Soak the gelatin in enough cold water to cover it for 1 hour.

  2. Drain the gelatin and stir it into 1 pint of hot cream.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks smooth with sugar, then add the boiling mixture gradually.

  2. Heat until it thickens, but do not let it boil.

Finish and set

  1. While still hot, stir in the other pint of cream, which has been whipped to a froth.

  2. Beat in the whipped cream a spoonful at a time until the custard is the consistency of sponge cake batter.

  3. Dip a mold in cold water, pour in the mixture, and set on ice or in a cold place to form.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Provides fat and richness, and whipped portions add air for a light texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as their proteins set with gentle heat, and add richness.
Gelatin
Sets the cooled mixture so it holds its shape when turned out of the mold.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps smooth the egg yolks before they join the hot mixture.

The step that matters

Heat until it thickens, but do not let it boil.. Egg yolk proteins set with gentle heat, but at boiling temperatures they curdle and turn grainy, ruining the smooth custard base.

“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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