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Dessert

Fruit Creams, Etc.

A dessert made by stewing fruit, puréeing it, adding sugar, and folding in a heated egg yolk and milk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Fruit Creams, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fruit pulp

  1. Stew the fruit with a little water until soft.

  2. Pulp the fruit through a sieve or colander.

  3. Add sugar to the fruit pulp.

Make the cream and serve

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the milk and heat gently until it simmers.

  2. Gradually stir the milk mixture into the fruit pulp.

  3. Serve when cold.

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. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

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

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Gooseberries, apples, or rhubarb
Provides the fruit flavour and the bulk of the pulp that gives the cream its body.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit pulp and balances its tartness.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk as it heats gently, giving the cream a smooth, rich texture.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that the egg yolks thicken and the fruit pulp is stirred into.

The step that matters

Gradually stir the milk mixture into the fruit pulp. Adding the warm custard slowly, while stirring, lets it blend evenly. Dumping it in at once can cause uneven mixing and curdling, leaving the cream grainy.

“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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