Skip to main content
Dessert

Fruit Cream

A custard dessert made with milk, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla, wine, almonds, citron, brandy, and fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Fruit Cream

Why it works: Vanilla and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fruit Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, heat milk until warm.

  2. In a bowl, whisk together sugar and egg yolks until smooth.

  3. Slowly add warm milk to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over low heat until thickened.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and wine.

Freeze

  1. Pour the custard into a freezer and freeze until half frozen.

  2. Add pounded almonds, chopped citron, brandy, and chopped peaches or raisins.

  3. Mix well and freeze again until fully set.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Vanilla + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together558 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + peachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 and add richness through their proteins and fat.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds creamy body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens the texture of the frozen dessert.
Pounded almonds
Add nutty flavour and a bit of body to the frozen cream.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour, and lowers the freezing point so the cream stays softer.

The step that matters

Cook the custard over low heat until thickened. Egg yolks set at gentle temperatures; if the heat is too high the proteins scramble and the custard turns grainy or curdled. Stirring constantly and keeping the heat low prevents this.

“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.

More fruit cream recipes

Frozen 4Ice 3 See all 37 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesPeach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipesPeach FrittersPeach Fritters55 recipes