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Dessert

Almond Cream

A chilled almond custard made with milk, cream, almonds, sugar, egg yolks, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Almond Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ingredients

  1. Soak the isinglass in cold water for 2 hours.

  2. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds, then pound them into a smooth paste, adding a few drops of milk to prevent oiling.

Make the cream

  1. Heat the milk with the lemon peel over boiling water for 10 minutes.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and pour the hot milk over them.

  3. Add the almond paste and strain the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Stir in the sugar and cream.

  5. Melt the soaked isinglass and mix it in.

Set and chill

  1. Rinse molds with cold water, pour the cream into them, and chill on ice.

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

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

  2. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 gel as it chills.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and a smooth texture.
Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond flavour and body through the paste.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, soft texture and mellow mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the almond flavour.

The step that matters

Melt the soaked isinglass and mix it in. Isinglass is a gelatin-like setting agent. It must be fully dissolved before mixing, or it will form lumps and the cream will set unevenly when chilled.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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