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Dessert

Fried Cream

A fried custard made from milk, cream, cornstarch, flour, egg whites, butter, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fried Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk with the cinnamon.

  2. Stir in the flour and cornstarch dissolved in a little extra milk; cook for 3 minutes.

  3. Add the butter, cream, and beaten egg whites; stir well and cook for another 3 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

  5. Mold the mixture in a shallow biscuit tin.

Fry and serve

  1. When ready to fry, cut into 2-inch squares, dip in egg and cracker crumbs, and fry in butter.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 whites
Set the custard as they cook, giving it body and a firm, sliceable texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard holds its shape when cooled and cut.
Flour
Adds body and helps thicken the custard, giving it a firmer structure.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the custard's texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch and egg whites thicken into custard.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thick before cooling. Starch must be fully cooked to gelatinize and thicken; undercooked starch stays runny, so the custard will not set firm enough to cut into squares and fry.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, flour, egg, butter. 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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