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Dessert

Italian Cream

A chilled lemon-flavored cream dessert made with sugar, gelatine, and preserved fruit garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Italian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Flavor the cream

  1. Rub the zest of 2 lemons onto 3 to 4 lumps of loaf sugar.

  2. Stir the sugar into 1 pint of rich cream.

  3. Add sugar to sweeten to taste.

  4. Whip the cream with the juice of 1 lemon.

Set and serve

  1. Dissolve 1 ounce of gelatine in a little water.

  2. Strain the dissolved gelatine into the whipped cream.

  3. Flavor the mixture to taste.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  5. Freeze until set.

  6. Garnish with preserved fruit before serving.

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).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Rich cream
Provides fat and body, giving the dessert its rich, smooth texture.
Gelatine
Sets the whipped cream so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the cream.
Lemon zest
Contributes aromatic lemon oils that flavor the cream.

The step that matters

Strain the dissolved gelatine into the whipped cream. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and strained so no lumps or undissolved granules remain, and it should be combined evenly so the set is smooth and uniform throughout the cream.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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