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Dessert

American Cream

A custard-like dessert made with egg yolks, milk, gelatin, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

American Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks with 2 tablespoons of sugar and a pinch of salt.

  2. Heat the milk until boiling.

  3. Slowly stir the gelatin into the hot milk.

  4. Add the egg yolk mixture to the milk and cook for a moment, stirring constantly.

Finish and flavor

  1. Remove from heat and fold in the beaten egg whites mixed with 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Add flavoring to taste.

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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Milk + gelatintop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk as they cook and add richness to the custard.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they lighten the texture and give the dessert its airy body.
Gelatin
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the yolks thicken and the gelatin sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolk mixture into the milk. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but if they get too hot or are not stirred constantly they can scramble and curdle. Stirring keeps the heat even so the custard stays smooth.

“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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