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Dessert

Italian Cream

A custard made with cream, milk, sugar, lemon peel, egg yolks, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Italian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the cream and milk together, sweetening to taste and adding lemon peel for flavor.

  2. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.

  3. Combine the heated cream mixture with the beaten egg yolks.

  4. Cook over low heat, stirring until thickened.

Set and mould

  1. Melt and strain the isinglass, then add it to the cream mixture.

  2. Whip the mixture well and pour it into a mold.

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

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the cream as they cook and give the dessert its rich body.
Cream
Provides fat and richness, giving the dessert a smooth, creamy texture.
Milk
Adds liquid and body to the cream base, keeping it softer than cream alone.
Isinglass
A gelatin-like setting agent that firms the mixture as it cools.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring until thickened. Egg yolks set at a gentle temperature; too much heat can curdle the custard into a grainy texture, so low heat and constant stirring are essential.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, milk, sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, sugar, egg. 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.

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