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Dessert

Burnt Cream

A custard dessert made with sugar, lemon rind, cream, egg yolks, and gelatin, finished by chilling in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Burnt Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine 1 ounce of pounded sugar and the grated rind of 1 lemon in a saucepan and stir over low heat until the sugar turns light brown.

  2. Add ½ cup of cream, 4 ounces of sugar, 4 egg yolks, and ¼ teaspoon of salt, stirring over heat until the eggs are set.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a large bowl.

Finish and set

  1. Mix in ½ cup of whipped cream and ¾ ounce of gelatin.

  2. Pour the cream into a mold set in rough ice.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and lemon 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set and give it a rich, smooth body.
Gelatin
Sets the cream so it holds its shape when turned out of the mold.
Whipped cream
Adds air and lightness, softening the set texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, when caramelised, adds the burnt flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs over heat until set. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat; too little heat leaves the custard thin, while overheating can curdle it into a grainy texture. Stir constantly and watch for the custard to coat a spoon.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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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