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Dessert

Italian Cream

A custard dessert made with cream, milk, gelatin, egg yolks, lemon rind, and sugar.

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

Italian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatin

  1. Soak the gelatin in a little cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Stir the gelatin over low heat until dissolved.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk and infuse the lemon rind for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the dissolved gelatin, egg yolks, lemon juice, and sugar to the milk mixture.

  3. Stir over low heat until the mixture thickens, then strain it.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cool, gently fold in the whipped cream.

  2. Pour into a mold or serve immediately in a glass dish or jelly glasses.

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

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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, it adds richness and a light, airy body to the set dessert.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the lemon flavour.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture so it holds its shape when chilled or turned out.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard when gently heated and add richness and colour.
Lemon
Its rind scents the milk and its juice adds acidity that brightens the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir the custard over low heat until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; too much heat can scramble them into lumps, so the custard must be stirred constantly over low heat and then strained.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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