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Dessert

American Meringue

A custard-like dessert made with milk, egg yolks, sugar, gelatin, topped with raspberry jam and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

American Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Heat the milk and gelatin in a pot until scalding hot.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until light.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the hot milk and gelatin.

  4. Leave the mixture on the stove for 5 minutes.

Add the caramel and set

  1. Heat ½ cup sugar in a small frying pan until it turns liquid and begins to smoke.

  2. Add the heated sugar to the hot mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  4. Refrigerate the mixture until cold.

Serve

  1. Serve with red raspberry jam and whipped cream.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the dessert its creamy body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture and add richness to the custard.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid so it holds its shape once chilled.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and, when heated, adds a caramel flavor.

The step that matters

Heating the sugar until it smokes. Sugar goes from amber to bitter and burnt within seconds once it starts smoking. Watch it closely and add it to the hot mixture before it darkens too far.

Swap the red raspberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Red raspberrythe original

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