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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A custard dessert made with sweet milk, gelatin, eggs, sugar, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Spanish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in the sweet milk.

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the sugar until combined, then stir in the milk.

  3. Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens like custard. Do not overcook.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

Set and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the custard.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

  3. Serve with whipped cream on top.

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. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 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).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites, whipped and folded in, give the dessert a light, airy texture.
Gelatine
Sets the dissolved milk mixture so it holds its shape when chilled in a mold.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the gelatine.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps balance the richness of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard. Over low heat, stirring constantly, the egg yolks thicken the milk gently. If overcooked, the yolks can curdle and become grainy, so the mixture must be removed once it coats a spoon.

“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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