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Dessert

Brandy Cream

A custard-like dessert made with blanched and bitter almonds, milk, egg yolks, cream, brandy, and thin cream.

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

Why it works: Milk and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,738 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Brandy Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond base

  1. Boil the blanched and pounded almonds in the milk until cold.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the cream.

  3. Sweeten the mixture and add the brandy, mixing well.

Thicken and set

  1. Pour in the thin cream and heat gently without boiling.

  2. Stir continuously until the mixture thickens.

  3. Pour into cups or low glasses and let cool.

  4. Add a ratafia drop to each cup if desired.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Almond + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,969 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they heat and set it into a soft custard.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and body from the pounded nuts steeped in milk.
Brandy
Adds a warm, aromatic spirit flavour to the cream.
Thin cream
Provides the rich liquid base that gently thickens into the dessert.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Egg yolks thicken at moderate heat but curdle and turn grainy if the mixture boils. Slow heating and constant stirring keep it smooth and lightly set.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Pecansfits about as well

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

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