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Dessert

Sack Cream

A custard made with egg yolks, cream, milk, sugar, lemon rind, and sherry, served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sack Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Gradually mix in the cream and lukewarm milk.

  3. Add sugar and grated lemon rind, then stir in the sherry.

  4. Heat the mixture over low heat until it begins to thicken, being careful not to curdle.

Serve

  1. Serve in custard glasses, sprinkled with powdered cinnamon.

  2. Accompany with ratafias or other sweet biscuits.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and a silky mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds liquid and dilutes the richness of the cream while still setting smoothly.
Sherry
Contributes flavour and aroma, and its alcohol adds a warm, fruity note.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture over low heat. Egg yolks set when heated, but too much heat makes them scramble and curdle. Gentle, low heat lets the custard thicken evenly into a smooth texture.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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