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Dessert

Spinach Cream

A custard made with egg yolks, sugar, thick cream, milk, spinach juice, and served over soft biscuits.

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

Why it works: Spinach and biscuit share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 58 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Spinach Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks and sweeten them.

  2. Combine the yolks with the cream and milk, stirring well.

  3. Add the spinach juice and mix thoroughly.

  4. Cook the mixture in a saucepan over low heat, stirring until very thick.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place soft biscuits in a custard dish and pour the mixture over them.

  2. Serve cold.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Spinach + biscuittop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  3. Cream + biscuittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Cream + spinachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set during gentle cooking, giving it a rich body.
Sugar
Sweetens the yolks and balances the richness of the cream.
Thick cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the custard a smooth, velvety texture.
Milk
Adds liquid and body, thinning the cream while keeping the custard smooth.
Spinach juice
Provides the green colour and a mild vegetable flavour to the custard.
Soft biscuits
Soak up the custard, giving the dish a soft, layered base.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring until very thick. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heating. High heat or insufficient stirring can scramble the proteins, leaving lumps or a grainy texture instead of a smooth custard.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

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