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Dessert

Italian Cream

A chilled dessert made with milk, cream, sugar, lemon, and sherry, set with isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Italian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream base

  1. Simmer and dissolve the isinglass in enough milk to cover it, with the thin outer rind of half a lemon.

  2. Whip the cream with the juice of one or two lemons, sherry, and 2 teaspoons of sugar.

  3. Once the isinglass is fully dissolved, remove the lemon rind.

Set the cream

  1. Stir the dissolved isinglass into the warm cream mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold, stirring to prevent settling.

  3. Surround the mold with 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. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

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

  4. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Isinglass
Gelatin-like protein that dissolves in warm liquid and sets as it cools, giving the cream its firm body.
Cream
Provides fat and richness, giving the dessert its smooth, creamy texture.
Lemons
Juice adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich cream.
Sherry
Adds aromatic flavor and a touch of acidity to the cream.

The step that matters

Stir the dissolved isinglass into the cream and keep stirring while pouring into the mold. Isinglass sets as it cools, so if it is added too cold or left unstirred it can gel unevenly or settle, leaving a layered, uneven texture instead of a uniform set.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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