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Dessert

Steeple Cream

A chilled almond and jelly cream served with cold whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Steeple Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Put ivory and hartshorn into a stone bottle and fill the bottle to the neck with water.

  2. Add a small quantity of gum-arabic and gum-tragacanth, then tie the bottle tightly.

  3. Place the bottle in a pot of water with hay at the bottom and let it stand for 6 hours.

  4. Remove the bottle and do not open it for 1 hour.

  5. Strain the mixture to obtain a strong jelly.

Make the almond cream

  1. Blanch and finely beat the almonds, then mix with thick cream and let it stand.

  2. Strain the almond mixture and mix it with the jelly.

Set and serve

  1. Heat the mixture until scalding and sweeten to taste with double-refined sugar.

  2. Remove from heat, add a little amber, and pour into small high containers.

  3. Once cold, turn them out and serve with cold whipped cream.

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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hartshorn
Acts as a leavening agent, releasing gas that lightens the set mixture.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the finished dish.
Double-refined sugar
Provides sweetness that balances the richness of the cream and jelly.
Jelly
Gives the dish its firm, set structure once cooled.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture until scalding. Cream and egg-free dairy mixtures can scorch on the base or curdle if overheated. Heat gently and stop once steam rises and small bubbles form at the edges, then sweeten off the heat so the sugar dissolves evenly.

“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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