Skip to main content
Dessert

Steeple Cream

A dessert made by clarifying water with hartshorn and isinglass, adding almond cream, jelly, sugar, and amber, then chilling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 hartshorn and isinglass into a stone bottle.

  2. Fill the bottle with water to the neck.

  3. Add a little gum-arabic and gum-dragon.

  4. Tie the bottle closed.

  5. Set the bottle in a pot of water with hay at the bottom.

  6. Let the mixture stand for six hours.

  7. Remove the bottle and let it sit for an hour before opening.

  8. Strain the mixture to obtain a strong jelly.

Make the almond cream

  1. Beat the blanched almonds finely and mix with thick cream.

  2. Let the mixture sit briefly.

  3. Strain the almond mixture and combine it with the jelly.

Cook and set

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

  2. Remove from heat.

  3. Add a little amber.

  4. Pour into small high pots.

  5. Turn the pots over.

  6. Serve with cold cream around them.

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. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Hartshorn
Forms the firm jelly that gives the cream its set and body.
Isinglass
Adds gelling strength so the jelly holds its shape when turned out.
Blanched almonds
Provide the main flavour and a rich, thick body when beaten into the cream.
Thick cream
Adds richness and fat, giving a smooth, soft texture to the set cream.
Double-refined sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the almonds and cream.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture until scalding hot. Gelatine-type setting agents must be fully dissolved before cooling; if the mixture is not hot enough, lumps or weak set can form, and overheating can break the cream's texture.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

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

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes