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Vanilla Cream

A chilled vanilla-flavored custard made with milk, cream, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Vanilla Cream

Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 ↓

Vanilla Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Put the vanilla bean into the milk and boil until thoroughly flavored.

  2. In another saucepan, combine the egg yolks and sugar, beating well.

  3. Remove the vanilla bean from the milk and strain the milk into the fresh cream.

  4. Warm the egg mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until slightly thickened, but do not let it boil.

  5. Strain the egg mixture through a coarse sieve and stir it rapidly into the cream and milk.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a large glass dish or individual cups.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + creamtop 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).

Vanilla and sugar 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 cream as they gently set when warmed, giving a rich, smooth body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the milk and cream.
Fresh cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and a soft mouthfeel.
Rich milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, carrying the vanilla flavor.
Vanilla bean
Provides the main aroma and flavor, infused into the milk by boiling.

The step that matters

Warm the egg mixture gently without boiling. Egg yolks thicken from gentle heat, around the point where proteins set. If the mixture boils, the yolks can scramble, leaving a grainy texture that straining cannot fully fix.

“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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