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Noyeau Cream

A chilled hazelnut cream made with Swiss milk, fresh milk, gelatine, sherry, lemon, and noyeau.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,479 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Noyeau Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Mix the Swiss milk and fresh milk together until thick like cream.

  2. Soak the gelatine in the sherry with the lemon peel and strained juice for 30 minutes.

  3. Warm gently until the gelatine is dissolved, then let it cool.

Make the cream

  1. Gently mix the cooled gelatine into the milk.

  2. Gradually add the noyeau while stirring continuously.

  3. Pour into a mold that has been soaked in cold water.

  4. Leave in the refrigerator until the next day.

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. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable cream once chilled.
Swiss milk
Adds thickness and richness, giving the cream its body.
Fresh milk
Provides liquid and creaminess that the gelatine sets.
Noyeau
Adds almond-like aroma and sweetness to the cream.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine fully before mixing. Gelatine must be completely dissolved and only cooled slightly before it is folded into the milk. If it is too hot, it can thin the mixture; if it is still grainy or cools too much, it sets in lumps and the cream sets unevenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sherry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sherry. 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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