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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A rose water and sorrel leaf custard made with egg yolks, cream, and isinglass.

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 ↓

Spanish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cream

  1. Dissolve isinglass in rose water.

  2. Strain through a fine sieve.

  3. Beat egg yolks and mix with cream, sorrel leaves, and sugar.

Set and serve

  1. Dip dish in cold water before adding cream.

  2. Cut out with a jigging iron and arrange with sweetmeats.

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. Cream + sorreltop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sorreltop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Isinglass
Sets the cream into a firm, wobbly custard as it cools.
Egg yolks
Enrich the cream, adding richness and a smooth, tender body.
Cream
Provides fat and body, giving the custard a soft, creamy texture.
Rose water
Dissolves the isinglass and adds a delicate floral aroma.

The step that matters

Strain through a fine sieve. Straining removes lumps of egg and bits of undissolved isinglass, so the set custard is smooth and clear rather than grainy.

Swap the sorrel

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Sorrelthe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rose, egg, 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.

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