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Dessert

Itauan Cream

A chilled dessert made from cream, sugar, lemon juice, wine, isinglass, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Itauan Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream mixture

  1. Divide the cream into two bowls.

  2. In one bowl, mix the sugar, lemon juice, and wine.

  3. Add the cream from the second bowl and stir well.

Set with isinglass

  1. Boil the isinglass with water until reduced to half.

  2. When lukewarm, stir the isinglass mixture into the cream.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until 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.

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

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

  2. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Cream + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Cream
Provides fat and richness, giving the set dessert a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sweet cream.
Wine
Adds flavour and some acidity to the cream.
Isinglass
Fish-derived gelatin that sets the cream into a firm, sliceable shape as it cools.

The step that matters

Stir in the isinglass while it is lukewarm. Isinglass sets as it cools. If it is still very hot it can thin the cream and weaken the set, and if it has already begun to gel it will form lumps in the cream.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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