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Dessert

Lime Cream

A chilled lime‑flavored custard made with cream, sugar, isinglass, and lime zest, set in a mold and decorated with crystallized fruit.

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

Lime Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the lime zest, 1 pint of cream, isinglass, and loaf sugar.

  2. Stir over low heat until everything dissolves without boiling.

  3. Add another ½ cup of cream and strain the mixture into a basin.

Set and serve

  1. Once nearly cold, slowly add the strained lime juice and stir well.

  2. When the mixture thickens and is about to set, pour it into a greased mold.

  3. Refrigerate until cold, then turn out and decorate with crystallized fruits.

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

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

  2. Lime + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Lime + creamtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together740 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Limes
The zest gives aroma and the juice gives the cream its tart, citrus flavour.
Cream
Provides richness and a smooth, creamy texture in the set dessert.
Isinglass
A gelatine-like setting agent that firms the cream as it cools.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cream and dissolves fully into the base.

The step that matters

Adding the lime juice. Lime juice is acidic and can curdle cream if added while the mixture is still warm. Letting it cool nearly to room temperature before stirring in the juice keeps the cream smooth. Stir slowly so the mixture stays even.

Swap the lime

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Limethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar. 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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