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 ↓
Italian Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Boil the milk.
Dissolve the gelatine in the hot milk.
Beat the sugar with the egg yolks and stir into the mixture.
Boil until thick like soft custard.
Finish and set
Remove from heat and fold in the beaten egg whites.
Flavor to taste.
Set in a cold place to harden.
Serve
Serve on a platter with whipped cream around it.
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.
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 so the cream holds its shape when chilled.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base and gives the cream its rich body.
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the custard and beaten whites lighten the texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cream and helps balance the richness of the eggs and milk.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten egg whites off the heat. Hot mixtures deflate beaten whites and can partly cook them, so removing the pan from heat first keeps the cream light and airy.
“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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