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Dessert

Bavarian Cream with Cocoa

A chilled custard dessert made with cocoa, gelatin, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Bavarian Cream with Cocoa

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Melt gelatin in a saucepan with sugar, water, brandy, and vanilla until clear.

  2. Cool the mixture.

Make the cocoa custard

  1. Stir cocoa powder into boiling milk, add sugar, and strain through muslin.

  2. Let it cool.

  3. Add egg yolks to the cooled milk mixture to make custard.

  4. Stir in dissolved gelatin and place on ice.

  5. Fold in whipped cream when the custard begins to set.

Assemble and chill

  1. Pour a layer of vanilla jelly, then a layer of cream.

  2. Repeat until the mould is filled.

  3. Chill for an hour before serving.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Cocoa powder + coffeetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together541 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vanilla + coffeetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Gelatine
Sets the jelly and the custard so the cream holds its shape when unmoulded.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a rich custard and add richness and structure.
Cocoa powder
Gives the cream its chocolate flavour and dark colour.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a soft, airy texture to the set cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and the custard and balances the cocoa's bitterness.

The step that matters

Fold in whipped cream when the custard begins to set. If the custard is still liquid, the cream will deflate and separate; if it has set fully, the cream will not blend in evenly. Timing at the first sign of setting keeps the mixture light and uniform.

“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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