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Dessert

Bavaroise

A chilled custard mousse made with cream, gelatin, egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla or rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Bavaroise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chill 1 pint of cream in ice for several hours until thoroughly cold.

  2. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 2 hours.

  3. In a saucepan, heat 1 pint of cream with the sugar until it boils.

  4. Pour the boiling cream over the soaked gelatine, stir until dissolved, and set aside to cool.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks until creamy.

  2. Once the cream mixture is cool, stir in the egg yolks briskly.

  3. Strain the mixture into a bowl and add vanilla or rum to taste.

  4. Chill the mixture in ice.

  5. Whip the remaining chilled pint of cream to stiff peaks.

  6. Let the boiled cream thicken, then stir it over ice until smooth.

  7. Gently fold in the whipped cream with minimal strokes.

Mould and set

  1. Rinse 2 molds or 1 large mold with cold water.

  2. Fill the molds with the mixture.

  3. Set aside to harden.

Serve

  1. Turn out the Bavaroise.

  2. Serve with cream or whipped cream sauce.

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

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

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

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

Cream
Whipped and folded in for a light, airy texture and adds richness.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid custard so the mousse holds its shape when turned out.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and add body and a smooth, rich texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the richness of the custard.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the whipped cream with minimal strokes. Whipped cream holds air bubbles that give the mousse its lightness. Overmixing deflates them and makes the texture dense and heavy.

“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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