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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A custard dessert made with gelatin, milk, egg yolks, vanilla, and beaten egg whites.

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

Spanish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in 1 pint of cold milk.

  2. Simmer 1 pint of milk on the stove.

  3. While hot, pour in the dissolved gelatin, stirring until fully dissolved.

  4. Add the beaten yolks and vanilla, and let scald for one minute.

Set and mold

  1. Pour the mixture into a large bowl containing the beaten egg whites.

  2. Stir briskly for one minute and pour into molds.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 27,347 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

Gelatine
Sets the cooled milk mixture into a firm, sliceable dessert.
Egg yolks
Enrich the milk and thicken it slightly, adding richness and colour.
Egg whites
Whipped into the custard to lighten its texture and add airy body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the gelatine and eggs set into.

The step that matters

Stirring the yolks into the scalded milk. Yolk proteins thicken when heated, so the mixture should be scalded gently and stirred steadily; overheating can curdle the eggs and leave a grainy texture.

“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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