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Dessert

A Very Fine Italian Cream

A thick lemon-flavored Italian cream made with scalded and raw cream, lemon rind, lemon juice, powdered sugar, and sweet wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

A Very Fine Italian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Whip together the scalded cream, raw cream, lemon rind, lemon juice, and powdered sugar for nearly an hour.

  2. Add the sweet wine and continue whisking until the mixture becomes quite solid.

Drain and set

  1. Place a piece of muslin in a sieve.

  2. Ladle the cream onto the muslin with a spoon.

  3. After 20 hours, carefully turn it out, ensuring it does not break.

Serve

  1. Garnish with fruit jelly or flowers before serving.

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. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Cream + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they 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

Scalded cream
Very thick cream gives the dessert its rich body and smooth, dense texture.
Raw cream
Adds fat and softness, keeping the mixture creamy rather than grainy as it thickens.
Lemon juice
Provides acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the richness of the cream.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cream and dissolves fully, giving a smooth texture without grittiness.
Sweet wine
Adds sweetness and aroma, and its liquid helps the mixture thicken as it is whisked.

The step that matters

Turning it out onto the muslin-lined sieve. The cream is only set by time and gentle draining, so handling it too roughly before it is fully firm can tear it. Cream that has been whisked to a solid state holds its shape only while its fat and protein network stays intact.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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