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Dessert

Bavarian Cream

A chilled custard dessert made with milk, cream, egg yolks, gelatin, sugar, and vanilla.

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 ↓

Bavarian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatin

  1. Soak the gelatin in enough cold water to cover it for 2 hours.

  2. Heat the milk.

  3. Stir in the gelatin until melted.

Make the custard

  1. Pour the mixture over the beaten egg yolks and sugar.

  2. Heat until it begins to thicken without boiling.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Add flavoring.

  5. Let it cool slightly.

Finish and set

  1. Whip the cream until stiff.

  2. Fold the stiff cream into the lukewarm custard a spoonful at a time until the mixture is like sponge-cake batter.

  3. Pour into a wet mold.

  4. Set on ice to form for a few hours.

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

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

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 they heat and add richness and colour.
Gelatine
Sets the cream so it holds its shape when chilled.
Sweet cream
Whipped to stiff peaks, it lightens the dessert and adds richness.
Rich milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Heat the custard without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but boiling can curdle them into a grainy texture and lose the smooth set. Heat gently until the custard just 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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