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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A custard made with gelatine, eggs, milk, and vanilla, topped with a stiff meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Spanish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine and custard

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold milk or water for 1 to 2 hours.

  2. Bring the milk to a boil.

  3. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and soft sugar together until light.

  4. Pour a little boiling milk onto the egg mixture and beat well.

  5. Pour the egg mixture back into the boiling milk.

  6. Add the soaked gelatine to the milk and stir over boiling water until dissolved and slightly thickened.

  7. Remove from heat, strain, and add vanilla.

Set and top

  1. Rinse a fancy mold with cold water and pour the mixture into it.

  2. Refrigerate until firm.

  3. Beat the egg whites to a foam, gradually add powdered sugar, and beat until stiff and glossy.

  4. Turn out the cream onto a serving plate, heap the meringue around it, and serve very cold.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Gelatine
Sets the cream into a firm shape when chilled.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken and enrich the custard; whites whip into the meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the gelatine sets.
Soft sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the yolks beat to a light texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Stir the gelatine mixture over boiling water until dissolved and slightly thickened. Gelatine must fully dissolve for the cream to set evenly; the custard should only thicken slightly, because overheating or boiling it can curdle the egg yolks and weaken the set.

“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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