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Dessert

Brandy Cream

A custard dessert made with blanched almonds, milk, egg yolks, cream, brandy, and optional ratafia.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Brandy Cream

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 ↓

Brandy Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond base

  1. Boil the blanched and pounded bitter almonds in the milk.

  2. When cold, mix in the beaten egg yolks and cream, then sweeten to taste.

  3. Add the brandy and mix well.

Thicken and serve

  1. Pour in the thin cream and heat gently without boiling, stirring continuously until it thickens.

  2. Pour into cups or low glasses and let cool before serving.

  3. Optionally, add a ratafia-drop to each serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  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

Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they heat gently and set it into a smooth custard.
Thin cream
Forms the rich body of the custard and carries the flavour.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, spirited flavour to the cream.
Pounded bitter almonds
Give a nutty, almond flavour infused into the milk.

The step that matters

Heating the cream without boiling. Egg yolks set as they warm, but boiling can curdle or scramble them and leave the cream grainy. Heat gently and stir constantly so the custard thickens evenly.

“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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