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Birch's Receipt for Mock Cream

A layered dessert of sponge biscuits, custard, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Birch's Receipt for Mock Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix the flour with the milk and simmer for 5 minutes to remove the raw taste.

  2. Beat the egg yolk and stir it into the boiling milk, then strain through a fine sieve.

  3. In a large bowl, mix the sugar, lemon juice, grated lemon peel, brandy, sweet wine, and cream.

  4. Whisk the mixture well.

  5. Skim off the froth as it rises, placing it on a sieve.

  6. Continue whisking until you have enough whipped cream.

  7. Chill the whipped cream for 3-4 hours to drain.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a deep dish, layer the sponge biscuits, ratafia, almonds, nutmeg, lemon peel, currant jelly, and raspberry jam.

  2. Pour the sweet wine and a little brandy over the sponge biscuits.

  3. Once the biscuits have absorbed the liquid, pour over the thicker custard.

  4. When ready to serve, top with the whipped cream and garnish with nonpareil comfits.

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. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Thickens the milk so the custard becomes richer and holds its body.
Egg yolk
Thickens the custard as it heats and adds richness.
Heavy cream
Whipped to form the light topping and adds richness to the base.
Sponge biscuits
Soak up the wine and brandy, giving the dish a soft, moist layer.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour to the custard.

The step that matters

Skim the froth and let the cream drain. Removing the froth as it rises and chilling the whipped cream lets excess liquid drain away, so the topping stays thick and holds its shape instead of weeping into the custard.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, sugar, brandy, wine, cream. 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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