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Dessert

Fruit Cream

A gelatin dessert made with fruit, water, and egg yolks, finished with whipped egg whites and served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Fruit Cream

Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Fruit Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Combine the fruit with ¾ pint of water and juice.

  2. Dissolve ½ box of gelatine in enough water to cover it and let it stand for 15 minutes.

  3. Heat the gelatine over hot water until fully dissolved.

  4. Add half of the dissolved gelatine to the fruit.

Make the custard

  1. In a double boiler, cook the egg yolks, sugar, and juice for 10 minutes.

  2. Once cool, stir in the beaten egg whites and the remaining gelatine.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into molds and let it cool.

  2. Once set, layer the two molds and serve with sugar and cream.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Peach + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together721 recipes

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

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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 liquid into a firm, wobbly structure once it cools.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the cooked custard layer, adding richness and body.
Egg whites
Beaten in to add lightness and an airy, aerated texture.
Peaches, pineapples, or plums
Provide the fruit flavour, sweetness and moisture for the gelatine layer.

The step that matters

Cook the egg yolks gently in the double boiler. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can scramble if they get too hot. Gentle, indirect heat in a double boiler keeps the custard smooth while it thickens.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Peachthe original

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