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Tea Cream

A chilled tea-infused cream made with cream, spices, green tea, egg whites, and garnished with whole ratafias.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Tea Cream

Why it works: Coriander and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tea Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the cream

  1. Boil the cream, coriander seeds, cinnamon, lemon peel, and sugar together for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the strong green tea.

Thicken and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites and strain the cream into them.

  2. Whisk over low heat until it begins to thicken.

  3. Pour into cups or a deep dish and let cool.

  4. Garnish with whole ratafias before 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. Coriander + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Cream
Provides the rich fat and body that make the dessert smooth and creamy.
Egg whites
Their proteins set on gentle heating, thickening the cream as it cools.
Strong green tea
Adds its own aroma and slightly bitter, grassy flavour to the cream.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tea's bitterness.
Coriander seeds
Release citrusy, floral aroma into the hot cream during boiling.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the infused cream.

The step that matters

Whisk over low heat until it begins to thicken. Egg white proteins set when heated, but too much heat makes them scramble into lumps. Gentle, steady heat thickens the cream smoothly.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, cinnamon, lemon, sugar, green tea, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, cinnamon, lemon, sugar, green tea, egg. 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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