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Dessert

Baby Cream

A confection made from sugar, glucose, cream, and water, cooked to a brittle consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Baby Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, glucose, and water in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over heat until the mixture reaches 260°F (127°C) or until it is slightly brittle in cold water.

  3. Add the cream and stir gently.

  4. Continue cooking until the mixture reaches 270°F (132°C) or is brittle in water.

Shape and cut

  1. Pour onto a greased slab or platter.

  2. Once cool enough, pull the mixture until it is stiff, then cut into small pieces.

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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the bulk of the candy and, as it cooks, sets into a firm, brittle structure.
Glucose
Inhibits crystallisation, keeping the candy smooth and stopping it from turning grainy.
Cream
Adds fat and milk solids, softening the texture and giving a creamy flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking to the final temperature. Sugar syrup changes quickly near the end of cooking. Going beyond 270°F (132°C) makes the candy hard and brittle, while stopping early leaves it soft and sticky. Checking the temperature keeps the texture right.

“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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