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Spinach Cream

A custard made with egg yolks, sugar, cinnamon, cream, milk, and spinach juice.

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

Why it works: Cinnamon and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 179 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Spinach Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Beat the egg yolks with a whisk.

  2. Add sugar and a stick of cinnamon.

  3. Stir in the cream and milk.

  4. Add spinach juice and mix well.

Cook and set

  1. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

  2. Pour into a custard 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.

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. Cinnamon + spinachtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  3. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Egg yolks
Proteins set as the custard heats, thickening the mixture into a firm, sliceable texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the savoury notes of the spinach juice.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth mouthfeel that softens the custard.
Milk
Provides the main liquid that gives the custard its body and moisture.
Spinach juice
Gives the custard its green colour and a fresh, vegetal flavour.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened. Egg yolk proteins set gently as they warm. If the heat is too high or stirring stops, the proteins tighten and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth custard.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Spinachthe original

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