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 ↓
Italian Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Sweeten the milk with sugar and flavor it with sherry wine and vanilla.
Beat the cream with an egg beater and remove the froth into a dish until all froth is collected.
Dissolve the gelatine in a little warm water.
Set the dish with froth into a tub of ice.
Pour the gelatine into the froth and stir constantly until it thickens.
Pour the mixture into molds and set in a cool place.
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.
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Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Sherry + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together506 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,479 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
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Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,301 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
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Cream + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,301 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
Swap the vanilla
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, milk, sherry, wine):
- Vanillathe original
- Strawberryfits about as well
- Applefits less well
- Pineapplefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, sherry, wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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