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 ↓
Golden Bavarian Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the gelatine and custard base
Soak the gelatine in cold water for 1 hour or until dissolved.
Heat the milk to boiling, add granulated sugar, and stir until dissolved.
Strain the gelatine into the milk and stir well.
Set aside to cool and thicken.
Whip and combine
Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, then whip in powdered sugar and essence.
Once the gelatine mixture is cold and starting to harden, beat it until smooth.
Stir in the beaten egg yolks until well combined, then fold in the whipped egg whites.
Set
Pour the mixture into a glass dish and refrigerate for 2 hours to cool and set.
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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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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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Sugar + eggtop 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 cream into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they add airy lightness to the set cream.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the custard base with richness and help give a smooth, creamy texture.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the gelatine sets and the custard is built on.
- Sweet cream
- Adds fat for a rich, smooth mouthfeel in the finished cream.
The step that matters
Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites hold air only while whipped; stirring them hard deflates the foam, and the gelatine mixture must be cool but not set so the whites blend in without losing their lift.
“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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