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Dessert

Mock Cream

A custard-like dessert made with boiling milk, arrowroot, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and arrowroot work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 817 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Mock Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix the arrowroot with a small amount of the boiling milk and stir the mixture well.

Finish and strain

  1. Beat the egg white until stiff.

  2. When the mixture is about half cold, add the beaten egg white.

  3. Place the mixture over low heat until it nearly boils.

  4. Strain before using.

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 + arrowroottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

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

  3. Arrowroot + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the arrowroot thickens into a smooth cream.
Arrowroot
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth, glossy, spoonable texture.
Egg white
Whipped to a stiff foam, it adds lightness and an airy, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg white. Add the egg white only when the mixture is about half cold. If it is still too hot, the heat can cook and deflate the foam, losing the airy lightness that makes the cream work.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg. 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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