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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A chilled custard dessert made with milk, egg yolks, sugar, vanilla, and gelatin, folded over beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Spanish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatin in half a pint of milk for one hour.

  2. Beat the egg whites in a deep dish until stiff and set aside in a cool place.

  3. Boil one quart of milk.

  4. Beat the egg yolks with sugar to taste.

Make the custard

  1. When the milk is just about to boil, stir in the yolks and the soaked gelatin.

  2. Let it thicken like custard, then pour it hot over the beaten egg whites, stirring continuously.

  3. Flavor with vanilla to taste.

Mold and chill

  1. Pour into molds and refrigerate for at least four hours 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Gelatine
Sets the mixture into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
Milk
Forms the creamy body of the dessert and carries the flavor.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff foam, they add lightness and an airy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the milk and eggs.

The step that matters

Thicken the custard gently, just short of boiling. Egg yolks set when heated, but if the milk-yolk mixture gets too hot it can curdle or turn grainy. Stirring steadily and stopping at a custard-like thickness keeps it smooth before it meets the whites and gelatin.

“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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