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Dessert

Cold Cheese Creams

A chilled cheese cream made with Parmesan, cream, aspic jelly, gelatin, and seasonings, served in molded cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 207 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Cold Cheese Creams

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the moulds

  1. Decorate small moulds with aspic jelly, chili, and chervil or truffle.

Make the cheese cream

  1. Half whip the cream.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin in the aspic jelly.

  3. Pour the mixture into a basin. Whip the mixture to a froth.

  4. Stir the cheese into the cream.

  5. When the whipped jelly is cold but not setting, add it to the cream with seasoning.

Set and serve

  1. Fill the decorated moulds.

  2. Let the moulds set.

  3. Turn the set moulds out onto a dish. Garnish with chopped aspic.

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. Mustard + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together207 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + cherviltop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together867 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Cream + cherviltop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together288 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Parmesan cheese
Provides rich savoury flavour and body to the cream.
Cream
Whipped to lighten the mixture and give a soft, airy texture.
Gelatine
Sets the aspic and cream so the moulds hold their shape when turned out.
Aspic jelly
Forms the set base and adds moisture, whipped to a light froth before folding in.

The step that matters

Adding the whipped jelly at the right temperature. If the whipped aspic is too warm it will deflate the cream and fail to hold air; if it is already setting it will form lumps and streaks. Cold but still liquid gives a smooth, stable mousse that sets evenly.

Swap the chervil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parmesan cheese, cream, pepper, mustard):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Chervilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parmesan cheese, cream, pepper, mustard. 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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