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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A custard dessert made with milk, gelatin, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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

Make the custard base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the milk and gelatin over boiling water until dissolved.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar.

  3. Add the beaten yolks to the milk mixture.

  4. Boil the mixture until it begins to thicken.

Finish and beat

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Fold the beaten egg whites into the thickened mixture.

  3. Beat together for 5 minutes.

  4. Add vanilla extract to taste.

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard sets from.
Gelatine
Sets the cream so it holds its shape when chilled.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites add airy lightness when folded in.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and helps stabilise the beaten egg yolks.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it begins to thicken. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can curdle them into lumps. Watch closely and stop as soon as the mixture coats a spoon.

“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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