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Dessert

A Cream

A chilled lemon and almond cream made by boiling cream and milk with bay leaves, lemon peel, and almonds, then sweetened and flavored.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 43,437 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Boil the cream and milk with bay leaves, lemon peel, and beaten almonds mixed with a drop of water.

  2. Add sugar, orange-flower water, and flour rubbed down with cold milk.

Finish and serve

  1. When cold, stir in lemon juice and serve in cups or lemonade glasses.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Cream + sugartop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,437 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,632 recipes

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

  3. Almond + flourtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Almond + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together19,048 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides richness and a smooth, thick texture once cooled.
Milk
Adds moisture and body to the cream base.
Flour
Thickens the cream so it sets to a soft, spoonable texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavour to the cooled cream.
Almonds
Contribute nutty flavour and body when boiled into the cream.

The step that matters

Rubbing flour down with cold milk. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps, because its starch granules swell unevenly. Mixing it smooth with cold milk first lets it disperse evenly so the cream thickens without lumps.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, milk, almond, sugar, orange, flour):

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Figbetter flavor fit
  3. Raisinbetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, almond, sugar, orange, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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