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Dessert

Russian Cream

A chilled custard dessert made with gelatin, milk, sugar, egg yolks, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Russian Cream

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 15 minutes.

  2. Add sugar and beaten egg yolks to the gelatin.

  3. Stir the mixture into the scalding milk.

  4. Cook for 2-3 minutes.

  5. Cool while beating the egg whites.

Finish and serve

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Flavor as desired.

  3. Pour the mixture into molds.

  4. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and milk 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.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and add richness and body to the cream.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they lighten the texture and add airiness.
Milk
Forms the base of the cream and gives it its soft, creamy body.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the richness of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Stir the gelatin mixture into the scalding milk. Gelatin must be fully dissolved and the mixture kept warm so it blends smoothly without lumps. Eggs cooked too quickly can curdle, so the cook should stir steadily and avoid boiling the custard once the yolks are added.

“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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