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Dessert

Tomato Creams

A chilled tomato gelatin dessert made with tomatoes, cream, stock, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,592 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Tomato Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomato base

  1. Scald the tomatoes and rub them through a sieve.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin in the gravy and season well.

  3. Add the tomato pulp and lemon juice to the mixture.

Make and set the creams

  1. Whip the cream until stiff, then add the tomato mixture when cold.

  2. Stir until it begins to set, then pour into small wet moulds.

  3. Serve garnished with salad.

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. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Tomato + creamtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Cream and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,640 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main flavour and the pulp that gives the creams their colour and body.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped into the mixture.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid so the creams hold their shape when turned out of the moulds.
Clear gravy or stock
Carries the gelatine and seasoning, adding savoury depth to the set mixture.

The step that matters

Adding the tomato mixture to the cream when cold. If the tomato mixture is still warm or has begun to set unevenly, it can melt or deflate the whipped cream and leave a grainy or loose texture. Chilling it to a cool, syrupy state keeps the cream's air intact and lets the mixture set evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, lemon. 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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