Name: Golden Bavarian Cream
Ingredients: ½ box of Cox's gelatine; 5 tablespoons cold water; 1 pint fresh milk; ¼ pint sweet cream; 2 tablespoons granulated sugar; 4 egg whites, stiffly beaten; 2 tablespoons powdered sugar; 8 drops of preferred essence; 2 egg yolks

Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Golden Bavarian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

Soak the gelatin in cold water for 1 hour or until dissolved.
Heat the milk to boiling.
Add granulated sugar to the milk.
Stir the milk until the sugar is dissolved.
Strain the gelatin into the milk.
Stir the mixture well.
Let the mixture cool and thicken.

Make the cream

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.
Whip in powdered sugar and essence.
Wait until the gelatin mixture is cold and starting to harden.
Beat the mixture until smooth.
Stir in the beaten egg yolks until well combined.
Gently fold in the whipped egg whites.

Set and serve

Pour the mixture into a glass dish.
Refrigerate for 2 hours to set.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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

Gelatine: Sets the liquid cream into a firm, sliceable body as it cools.
Egg whites: Whipped to foam, they lighten the cream and give it an airy texture.
Egg yolks: Add richness and body, and help give the cream a smooth, custard-like texture.
Milk: Forms the liquid base that the gelatine sets and the custard-style flavour comes from.
Sweet cream: Adds fat for a richer, smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. If the gelatine mixture is too warm or too set, the whites deflate or the cream turns lumpy. Wait until it is cold and just starting to thicken, then fold gently so the foam keeps its air.

“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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Golden Bavarian Cream