Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and 19,053 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Maizena Bavarian Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cream
Dissolve a little salt in 1 cup of milk in a saucepan.
Work in 3 oz of sugar slightly warmed.
Heat the pan until the milk boils.
Stir in 3 oz of Maizena and the whipped yolks of 3 eggs mixed with ½ cup of milk. Stir well for a few minutes.
Add lemon peel or vanilla for flavor.
Set and serve
Strain into a mold.
Place the mold on ice until the cream is set.
Turn out onto a napkin on a dish and serve with fruit syrup.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Sugar and lemon share little aroma chemistry, yet 53,532 recipes mention both: they likely 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the thickened cream is built on.
- Maizena (cornstarch)
- Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the cream its firm, sliceable body.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help set the cream as they combine with the heated milk.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cream and softens its flavor.
The step that matters
Stir in the starch and yolks. Cornstarch thickens only when the mixture is hot enough, but egg yolks can scramble if overheated. Stir constantly while cooking so the starch gelatinizes smoothly and the yolks thicken the cream without curdling.
Flavor stand-ins for the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, egg):
- Vanillabetter flavor fit
- Figabout as good a flavor fit
- Raisinabout as good a flavor fit
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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