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Dessert

Russian Cream

A chilled custard dessert made with gelatin, milk, eggs, sugar, and flavoring, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Russian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatin in enough water to cover for 10 minutes.

  2. Stir the soaked gelatin into the hot milk.

  3. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar.

  4. Stir the beaten yolks into the milk and gelatin mixture.

  5. Cook the mixture for 5 minutes.

Set and serve

  1. Set the mixture aside to cool.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Add flavoring.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  5. Refrigerate until set.

  6. Serve with whipped 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. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 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).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 cooled cream into a firm, sliceable body when chilled.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard, adding richness and helping thicken the mixture when cooked.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in, they add lightness and an airy texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the cream its body and mild flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the richness of the yolks and milk.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture for 5 minutes. Cooking the yolk and milk mixture gently thickens the custard and cooks the yolks, which makes the cream safe and smooth. Overheating can curdle or scramble the eggs, so keep the heat moderate.

“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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