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Dessert

Barley Cream

A sweet, thickened milk dessert made with barley, eggs, arrowroot, sugar, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and arrowroot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 36 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Barley Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley

  1. Boil the barley in milk and water until tender.

  2. Strain the liquid.

Make the cream

  1. Put the barley in a quart of cream.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Beat the yolk of one egg and the whites of five with arrowroot.

  4. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling cream until it thickens.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Stir in sugar and brandy.

  7. Pour into a bowl or cups.

  8. Serve.

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. Barley + arrowroottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Barley + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Barley
Softens as it simmers, giving the cream body and a grainy, pleasantly chewy texture.
Egg yolk and egg whites
Thicken the cream as they set with heat, giving it a smooth, custard-like body.
Arrowroot
Starch that thickens the egg mixture and helps keep the cream smooth when heated.
Cream
Provides richness and fat, giving the dish a silky mouthfeel.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream and eggs.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture into the boiling cream until it thickens. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the cream is too hot or stirred poorly, the eggs can curdle or scramble. Adding them to the hot cream gradually, while stirring, keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Arrowrootthe original

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

More barley cream recipes

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