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Dessert

Italian Cream

A chilled custard made from thick cream, lemon juice, white wine, sugar, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Italian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream mixture

  1. Mix the cream with the lemon juice and white wine.

  2. Add the whole lemon peel and sufficient loaf sugar.

  3. Beat the mixture well with a whisk.

Drain and serve

  1. Cover a mold with clear muslin and pour the cream mixture in.

  2. Let it drain until the next day, then carefully turn it out.

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

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

  2. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Cream + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,760 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Thick cream
Forms the rich, body-giving base that sets into a soft, spreadable texture as it drains.
Lemon juice
Acidity thickens the cream and gives it a bright, tangy flavor.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the sweetness and richness of the cream.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cream and adds to its smooth, rounded flavor.
Lemon peel
Contributes aromatic oils that perfume the cream as it stands.

The step that matters

Let it drain until the next day. Draining in muslin lets whey separate slowly from the cream, so the mixture firms enough to hold its shape when turned out. Turning out too early leaves it soft and likely to collapse.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, white wine, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, white wine, sugar. 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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