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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A custard dessert with banana slices soaked in white wine, served with a sweetened egg yolk and gelatin mixture.

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

Spanish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Soak the gelatine in 1½ pints of milk for 1 hour.

  2. Scald the remaining 1½ pints of milk.

  3. Stir in the soaked gelatine.

  4. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together.

  5. Remove the milk mixture from heat.

  6. Stir in the egg yolk mixture.

  7. Allow to cool.

  8. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  2. Refrigerate until set.

  3. Slice bananas.

  4. Soak them in a little white wine for 2 hours.

  5. Serve the bananas covered with custard made as for chocolate 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.

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. White wine + bananatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Milk + bananatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the milk mixture into a firm, sliceable custard that holds its shape when chilled.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the milk mixture, adding richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add lightness and an airy, delicate texture.
Milk
Forms the main body of the cream and carries the gelatine and egg mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the yolks and milk.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolk mixture off the heat. Egg yolks can scramble and curdle if they meet very hot liquid. Removing the milk from heat before stirring in the yolks lets them thicken gently and smoothly.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, white wine, chocolate, 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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