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Dessert

Velvet Cream

A gelatin-based lemon and sherry cream dessert.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Velvet Cream

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 ↓

Velvet Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cut the lemon rind very thinly.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the lemon rind, water, sugar, and gelatine.

  3. Dissolve the gelatine and bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Remove from heat and let it sit for 10 minutes to extract the lemon flavor.

  5. Add the sherry to the mixture.

Set the cream

  1. Whip the cream and strain the gelatine mixture into it, stirring continuously.

  2. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until set.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Cream + sherrytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Whipped to form the light, airy body of the dessert.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and balances the sherry and lemon.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a mild acidity to the flavour.

The step that matters

Straining the gelatine into the whipped cream. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and cooled slightly before stirring it into the cream; if it is too hot it can deflate the whipped cream, and if it cools too much it sets in lumps before it mixes evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, 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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