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Dessert

Clotted Cream

Clotted cream is a thickened dairy product made by simmering milk with mace, rosewater, and egg yolks, then cooling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,346 recipes. Both carry sabinene, which smells woody, terpenic. The science ↓

Clotted Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Simmer the mace in the new milk for a few minutes.

  2. Stir in the rosewater and beat in the egg yolks.

  3. Strain the milk mixture and gradually stir it into the cream.

  4. Heat the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until it is near boiling.

Set the cream

  1. Pour into a dish and let it stand for 24 hours.

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. Mace + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Fresh cream
Provides the fat that makes the finished cream rich and thick.
New milk
Forms the liquid base that the cream is gently heated and thickened in.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they heat and add richness and smoothness.
Mace
Infuses the milk with a warm, spiced aroma.
Rosewater
Adds a floral aroma to the finished cream.

The step that matters

Heat gently and stir constantly until near boiling. Egg yolks thicken as they warm but can scramble or curdle if the heat is too high or uneven. Constant stirring and low heat spread the warmth evenly, giving a smooth, thick custard.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, 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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