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Dessert

Bavarian Cream

A chilled custard dessert made with sweet cream, egg yolks, gelatin, sugar, vanilla or almond extract, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and gelatin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Bavarian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatin in enough cold water to cover it for 1 hour.

  2. Heat 1 pint of cream until boiling.

  3. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until smooth.

Make the custard

  1. Gradually add the hot cream mixture to the egg yolks, beating continuously until it thickens but does not boil.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla or almond extract.

Finish and set

  1. While hot, fold in the other pint of whipped cream until the mixture resembles sponge cake batter.

  2. Dip a mold in cold water, pour in the mixture, and set on ice to form.

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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

Sweet cream
Provides richness and the bulk of the creamy body once whipped and folded in.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard base and add richness and structure as they heat with the cream.
Gelatin
Sets the cream so the mixture holds its shape when chilled in the mold.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the cream and yolks.

The step that matters

Gradually add the hot cream mixture to the egg yolks. Adding hot cream too quickly can scramble the yolks. Adding it slowly while beating tempers them, so the custard thickens smoothly without curdling or boiling.

“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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