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Cream

A custard made from eggs, sugar, milk, and flavoring, boiled, beaten, and frozen.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Cream

Why it works: Sugar and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cream

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Set the milk on the fire and bring it to a boil.

  2. Mix half the sugar and the essence with 6 yolks and 3 egg whites.

  3. Beat the remaining 3 egg whites separately to a stiff froth.

  4. Once the milk boils, remove it from the heat and stir in half the sugar until melted.

  5. Gradually add the egg mixture to the milk while beating continuously with an egg beater.

  6. Return to the heat and remove at the first boil, beating gently to prevent curdling.

  7. Mix in the beaten egg whites and combine well.

Freeze

  1. Cool the mixture in cold salt water, then freeze.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  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. Egg + sugartop 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard as they heat, and whipped whites add air for a lighter texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base, giving the custard its creamy body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens the texture of the frozen mixture.

The step that matters

Return to the heat and remove at the first boil. Egg yolks thicken as they warm but scramble or curdle if overheated. Stopping at the first boil and beating gently keeps the custard smooth.

“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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