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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A custard made with eggs, milk, gelatin, and vanilla, topped with a stiff meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 the gelatine and custard

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold milk or water for 1 to 2 hours.

  2. Bring the milk to a boil.

  3. In a bowl, beat the yolks and soft sugar together until light.

  4. Pour a little boiling milk onto the egg mixture and beat well.

  5. Pour the egg mixture back into the boiling milk.

  6. Add the soaked gelatine to the milk and stir over boiling water until dissolved and slightly thickened. Do not let it boil to avoid curdling the eggs.

  7. Remove from heat, strain, and add vanilla.

Set the cream

  1. Rinse a fancy mold with cold water and pour the mixture into it.

  2. Set aside in the ice until firm.

Make the meringue and serve

  1. When ready to serve, beat the egg whites to a foam, gradually add powdered sugar, and beat until stiff and glossy.

  2. Turn out the cream onto a serving plate and heap the meringue around it.

  3. Serve very cold.

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

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 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 milk and egg custard into a firm, sliceable cream when chilled.
Eggs
Yolks thicken and enrich the custard; whites whip into the stiff meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the gelatine sets.
Soft sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the egg yolks beat to a light texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it hold a stiff, glossy structure.

The step that matters

Keep the custard below a boil. Egg yolks curdle and turn grainy when overheated, so the custard should thicken gently over hot water rather than boil.

“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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