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 ↓
Italian Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Beat the egg yolks until frothy.
Scald the sweet milk in a saucepan.
Make and serve
While the milk is hot, dissolve the gelatine in it.
Add the beaten egg yolks, sugar, and flavoring to the mixture.
Serve with sweet cream.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Adds richness and a smooth, custard-like body.
- Gelatine
- Sets the liquid so it firms up as it cools.
- Sweet milk
- Forms the liquid base that the gelatine sets in.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the richness of the dairy and yolks.
The step that matters
Adding the beaten egg yolks to the mixture. Egg yolks scramble when they meet very hot liquid too quickly, leaving small cooked specks. Adding them gradually while whisking, or mixing in a little warm liquid first, helps them blend evenly into a smooth mixture.
“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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