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Dessert

Ginger Cream

A gelatin dessert made with ginger, whipped cream, powdered sugar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Ginger Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water until soft.

  2. Add the boiling water and stir until dissolved; let it cool.

Make the cream

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff.

  2. In a bowl, combine the whipped cream and sift in the powdered sugar.

  3. Place the bowl in a pan of ice water and add the cooled gelatine; mix lightly.

  4. When thickening, add the finely chopped crystallized ginger mixed with a little powdered sugar.

Mould and serve

  1. Dip an ice cream brick in cold water and drain.

  2. Fill the brick with the cream mixture and let it stand until thickened.

  3. Cut into slices when 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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Ginger + creamtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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 a firm shape when chilled.
Whipped cream
Provides the rich, light body of the dessert.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they add airiness to the mixture.
Crystallized ginger
Adds its sweet, spicy flavour and aroma throughout the cream.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cream and dissolves easily into it without graininess.

The step that matters

Adding the gelatine to the cream. Add the gelatine only once it has cooled, with the cream sitting over ice water. If it is still hot, it can deflate the whipped cream; if it sets too quickly, it forms lumps or strands. Mix lightly so the cream keeps its air.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, egg. 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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