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Velvet Cream Made with Gelatine

A chilled gelatin-based cream flavored with lemon and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Velvet Cream Made with Gelatine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in the water for 30 minutes.

  2. Heat the gelatine with the sherry or raisin wine until dissolved.

Make the cream

  1. Rub the loaf sugar on the lemon rind to extract flavor.

  2. Add the sugar and lemon juice to the mixture.

  3. Stir over heat until the sugar is dissolved.

  4. Pour the mixture into a bowl.

  5. Let it cool.

  6. Gradually mix in the thick cream until well combined.

  7. Pour into a mold that has been chilled in cold water.

  8. Serve on a glass dish.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Sherry + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and lemon 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

Gelatine
Sets the cream into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
Thick cream
Provides richness, body and a smooth, velvety texture.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon rind
Contributes aromatic lemon oils that flavour the cream.

The step that matters

Let it cool before adding the cream. Gelatine begins to set as it cools, so if the mixture is too hot the cream may curdle or separate, and if it is too cold the gelatine may set in lumps before the cream is evenly blended.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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