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Dessert

Burnt Cream

A custard dessert made with clarified sugar, ratafia biscuit, lemon peel, orange flower, milk, cream, eggs, and buttered molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Burnt Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel base

  1. Heat 2 tablespoons of clarified sugar in a saucepan until it begins to burn and turn brown. Shake the pan.

  2. Add 1 ounce of ratafia biscuit, a small piece of lemon peel, sugar, and orange flower; stir to combine.

  3. Pour in 1 pint of boiled new milk and let it simmer on the stove for 20 minutes.

Make the custard

  1. Beat 4 eggs and 2 egg yolks in a separate bowl.

  2. Remove the milk from the heat and mix in ½ pint of good thick cream.

  3. Add the eggs, straining through a fine sieve.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter small molds with clarified butter and fill them with the cream mixture. If preferred, use one large mold instead.

  2. Place a large saucepan with a little water on the heat.

  3. When the water boils gently, add the molds and cover tightly, placing a weight on top (bain‑marie).

  4. Once cooked, remove the molds from the water, wipe them, and turn them out onto a dish.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Biscuit + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving it a firm, sliceable body.
Egg yolks
Add richness and smoothness, making the custard silkier and more tender.
Thick cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and a creamy mouthfeel.
New milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the flavour of the infusion.
Clarified sugar
Browns and caramelises to give the burnt, bittersweet flavour characteristic of the dish.

The step that matters

Straining the custard through a fine sieve. Straining removes any bits of cooked egg and lumps from the mixture, so the custard sets smooth and even. Cooking it gently in a water bath keeps the eggs from curdling and becoming grainy.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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