Skip to main content
Dessert

Burnt Cream

A custard dessert made with cream, milk, cornflour, egg yolks, vanilla sugar, and cinnamon, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Vanilla and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Burnt Cream

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the cornflour smoothly with a little milk.

  2. Combine the remaining milk with the cream and 1 oz of vanilla sugar in a saucepan.

  3. Bring to a boil, then add the cornflour mixture and cook for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Cool slightly, then whisk in the well-beaten egg yolks by the fire until thickened, without boiling.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered soufflé dish.

  2. Sprinkle the surface lightly with cinnamon and thickly with vanilla sugar.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10-15 minutes until well-browned.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set, and add richness and a smooth texture.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the custard a smooth, silky texture.
Cornflour
Thickens the milk and cream mixture so the custard holds its body.
Vanilla sugar
Sweetens the custard and caramelises on the surface to form the burnt top.

The step that matters

Whisking in the egg yolks. Egg yolks scramble if the mixture gets too hot, leaving lumps. Whisking them in off the heat, without boiling, keeps the custard smooth and lets it thicken gently.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes