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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A custard dessert made with cream, isinglass, bay leaves, bitter almonds, sugar, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Spanish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine the cream, isinglass, bay leaves, blanched bitter almonds, and loaf sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer until the isinglass is dissolved.

  3. Beat the egg yolks.

  4. Stir the beaten yolks into the mixture until it thickens to the consistency of custard.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold that has been dipped in cold water.

  2. Once cooled, turn the custard out of the mold.

  3. Serve garnished with sugar plums or flowers.

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. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Cream
Provides richness and body, giving the custard its smooth, creamy texture.
Isinglass
Acts as a gelatin-like setting agent that firms the cooled custard so it holds its shape.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture into custard as they set with gentle heat, adding richness.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Stirring the yolks into the mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can scramble if the mixture is too hot or added without stirring. Keep the heat low and stir steadily so the custard thickens smoothly rather than curdling.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Pecansfits less well

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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