Skip to main content
Dessert

Steeple Cream

A gelatinous cream dessert made with ivory, hartshorn, almonds, cream, and jelly, served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Steeple Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Combine ivory and hartshorn in a stone bottle.

  2. Fill the bottle with water to the neck.

  3. Add a small amount of gum-arabic and gum-tragacanth.

  4. Seal the bottle tightly.

  5. Place it in a pot of water with hay at the bottom.

  6. Let it stand for 6 hours.

  7. Remove and let it sit for 1 hour before opening.

  8. Strain the mixture to obtain a strong jelly.

Make the cream

  1. Blend the blanched almonds with thick cream.

  2. Let the mixture sit briefly.

  3. Strain the almond mixture.

  4. Combine it with the jelly.

  5. Heat the mixture until scalding hot.

  6. Sweeten with double-refined sugar to taste.

  7. Remove from heat.

  8. Add a little amber.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into small high gallipots.

  2. Once cooled, turn them out.

  3. Serve with cold whipped cream.

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. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 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

Blanched almonds
Provide the main flavour and body of the cream once blended and strained.
Thick cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the set cream a smooth, soft texture.
Hartshorn
Forms a gel with the water, giving the jelly its firm setting structure.
Ivory
Contributes to the jelly base that helps the cream hold its shape.
Double-refined sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the richness of the cream and jelly.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture until scalding hot. Heating the cream and jelly together must be controlled so the mixture thickens evenly and does not boil or scorch, which would spoil its smooth texture.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

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

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes