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Dessert

Russian Cream

A gelatin-based custard dessert made with milk, sugar, eggs, and flavored with Coleman’s extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Russian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Soak gelatin in cold water for 16 minutes.

  2. Heat the milk until boiling, then add the soaked gelatin.

  3. Beat the sugar and egg yolks together, then add to the milk mixture and cook for 2 minutes.

Finish and chill

  1. Allow the mixture to cool partially, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Flavor with Coleman's extract to taste.

  3. Pour into molds and refrigerate for several hours before serving.

  4. In warm weather, prepare the day 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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. 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 cream so it holds its shape when unmolded and chilled.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk mixture as they cook and add richness.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in, they add a light, airy texture.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the dessert.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the richness of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites after the mixture cools partially. If the custard is still very hot, the beaten egg whites will deflate and lose their air, making the cream dense. If it has cooled too far, the gelatine may begin to set and the whites will not blend in smoothly.

“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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