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Dessert

Ginger Cream

A chilled ginger custard dessert made with egg yolks, milk, sugar, ginger, gelatin, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Ginger Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Make a custard with the egg yolks, milk, and sugar, or use ½ pint of Bird's Custard.

  2. Add the preserved ginger, cut into small pieces, and let it cool.

Set and mould

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in the ginger syrup and water, then mix it into the custard.

  2. When the mixture is quite cold, whip the cream and fold it in.

  3. When nearly set, pour the mixture into a mould.

  4. Decorate the mould with clear jelly and pieces of ginger, angelica, or pistachio nuts.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Cream + syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Ginger + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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 custard and add richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid cream so it holds its shape when turned out of the mould.
Cream
Whipped and folded in to add lightness and a soft, creamy mouthfeel.
Preserved ginger
Provides the main ginger flavour and a slightly chewy texture through the cream.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped cream only when the mixture is quite cold. Warm custard melts the whipped cream and deflates its air bubbles, and a mixture that is not cold enough will not hold the air. Chilling first keeps the dessert light and stops the cream from separating.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Peppermintfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, cream, syrup. 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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