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Dessert

Fruit Cream

A chilled custard dessert flavored with vanilla, wine, brandy, almonds, citron, and fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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. Combine milk and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Heat the mixture until warm.

  3. Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl.

  4. Gradually add the warm milk mixture to the yolks, stirring constantly.

  5. Cook the mixture over low heat until thickened.

  6. Remove the mixture from the heat.

  7. Stir in vanilla extract and wine.

  8. Let the custard cool.

Freeze and add fruit

  1. Pour the custard into a freezer.

  2. Freeze until half frozen.

  3. Add pounded almonds, chopped citron, brandy, and chopped peaches or raisins, then mix well.

  4. 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 as their proteins set and help hold the milk and sugar together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the custard its body and creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the frozen texture by lowering the freezing point.
Brandy
Adds aroma and keeps ice crystals small, so the frozen result stays softer.
Pounded almonds
Add nutty flavor and a fine, slightly rich texture.
Peaches or raisins
Add fruit flavor, sweetness and moisture to the frozen custard.

The step that matters

Cook the yolk mixture over low heat until thickened. Egg yolk proteins set gently as they warm. Too much heat or too little stirring makes them curdle and turn grainy, so keep the heat low and stir constantly.

“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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