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Dessert

Clotted Cream

Clotted cream is a thickened dairy product made by simmering milk, rose water, mace, egg yolks, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and rose work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 498 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Clotted Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the flavoured milk

  1. String the mace on a thread and add it to the new milk and rose-water.

  2. Simmer for a few minutes, then strain and gradually stir into the beaten egg yolks.

Combine and set

  1. Combine this mixture with the cream and heat over low until hot but not boiling.

  2. Pour into a deep dish and let it stand for 24 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve in a cream dish with fruits.

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. Mace + rosetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together498 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Mace + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Forms the thick, rich body of the clotted cream as it slowly sets.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken the mixture when gently heated.
New milk
Provides the liquid base that carries the flavours and combines with the cream.
Rose-water
Adds a floral aroma to the cream.
Mace
Adds a warm, spiced aroma infused into the milk.

The step that matters

Heating over low until hot but not boiling. Boiling can curdle the egg yolks and scorch the cream, while gentle heat thickens the mixture smoothly. Slow heating lets the cream thicken gradually as it is left to stand.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Macethe original
  4. Peppermintfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, rose, egg, 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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