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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A chilled gelatin-based custard made with milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

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 a little milk in a cup.

  2. Sweeten the milk to taste and heat it on the stove until it comes to a boil.

  3. Beat the yolks of the eggs until light and stir them into the hot milk.

  4. Add the dissolved gelatin and bring to a boil again.

  5. Stir in the beaten egg whites and mix briskly for a few moments.

Set and serve

  1. Wet cups with cold water and pour the mixture into them.

  2. Set aside to cool and serve with a little cream flavored with Royal Extract Vanilla.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  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).

Sugar and vanilla 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the milk and whites add lightness to the set dessert.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture into a soft, sliceable custard as it cools.
New milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs and gelatine set into a custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard to taste.

The step that matters

Stirring in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites must be beaten and folded in briskly so they stay evenly dispersed rather than settling or forming lumps. Gelatine needs to be fully dissolved first so the mixture sets evenly.

“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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