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Dessert

Ginger Cream

A chilled gelatin dessert flavored with ginger and sweetened with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Ginger Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Soak ½ box of gelatine in ⅓ cup of milk for 30 minutes.

  2. Stand the mixture over hot water until dissolved.

  3. Add 4 tablespoons of powdered sugar and stir until combined.

  4. Gently fold in 1 pint of whipped cream, 2 tablespoons of syrup from preserved ginger, and 2 tablespoons of chopped ginger.

  5. Strain the mixture through a sieve and stir until it begins to thicken.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into small molds and refrigerate until set.

  2. Turn out the ginger cream and garnish with bits of preserved ginger.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Cream + syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Syrup + gingertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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 cream into a firm, sliceable shape as it cools.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture to the set dessert.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cream and dissolves smoothly into the mixture.
Syrup from preserved ginger
Adds sweetness and concentrated ginger flavour throughout the cream.

The step that matters

Stirring until it begins to thicken. If the mixture is folded in before it has thickened slightly, the whipped cream may deflate and the gelatine may set unevenly. Stop at a slight thickening so the cream stays airy and holds its shape when chilled.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Peppermintfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, cream, syrup. 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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