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Dessert

Barley Cream

A sweet, thickened barley dessert made with milk, cream, eggs, 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, then strain the liquid.

Make the cream

  1. In a saucepan, combine the strained barley with the cream and bring to a boil.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolk and egg whites with the arrowroot until well mixed.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling cream, stirring until it thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in the loaf sugar and brandy or ratafia.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a bowl or cups and let it cool 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.

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

Egg whites
Whipped with arrowroot, they add lightness and help the cream set as it thickens.
Egg yolk
Thickens the cream as it heats and adds richness and a smooth, custard-like body.
Arrowroot
Thickens the cream into a smooth, glossy texture without making it cloudy.
Cream
Provides fat for a rich, velvety mouthfeel.
Barley
Adds body and a mild, nutty flavour to the cream.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the boiling cream. Egg proteins can scramble if they meet very hot liquid without enough stirring. Keep stirring steadily as it thickens so the mixture sets smooth rather than curdled.

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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