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Dessert

Gil Tea Cream

A custard-like cream made with green tea, milk, cream, egg yolks, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Gil Tea Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the tea

  1. Pour boiling milk over green tea in a teapot.

  2. Cover and let it infuse on a hot plate for 15 minutes.

Make the cream

  1. Strain the milk and mix it with cream.

  2. Stir in egg yolks and sweeten to taste.

  3. Thicken the mixture in a hot-water bath or over low heat.

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. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 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).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the custard a smooth, full mouthfeel.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the tea flavor and sets with the yolks.
Green tea
Gives the cream its grassy, slightly bitter aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture in a hot-water bath or over low heat. Egg yolks begin to set around 65 to 70 °C and can curdle or scramble if overheated. Gentle, even heat keeps the custard smooth and thick.

“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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