Skip to main content
Dessert

Spanish Cream

A custard-like dessert made with gelatin, milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Prepare the gelatine and milk

  1. Soak the gelatine in the water.

  2. In a double boiler, heat all but ½ cup of the milk until boiling.

  3. Beat the yolks of the eggs until light and mix with the reserved ½ cup of milk.

Make the custard

  1. Stir the dissolved gelatine into the boiling milk and cook for 1 minute.

  2. Add the yolk and milk mixture and cook for 1 more minute until thick like cream.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture just before removing it from the heat.

  4. Once nearly cold, stir in the vanilla.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the cream into a mould dipped in cold water.

  2. Refrigerate until set, preferably overnight or for several hours on ice.

  3. Serve with whipped cream and sponge cake.

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid cream into a firm, sliceable body as it chills.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites, folded in stiff, add lightness and airiness.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that the gelatine and eggs set and thicken.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the richness of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites just before removing from heat. The mixture must be thick enough to hold the whites' air, yet not so hot that it scrambles the egg yolks or deflates the foam. Folding gently at the right moment keeps the cream light and smooth.

“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.

More spanish cream recipes

Pudding 3 See all 231 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes