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Dessert

Spanish Cream

A custard dessert made with milk, egg yolks, sugar, isinglass, and spices, set in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Spanish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Soak the isinglass in cold water until soft.

  2. Simmer the milk in a saucepan, but do not let it boil.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the loaf sugar until well combined.

  2. Pour the hot milk over the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  3. Add spices to taste and mix well.

Set

  1. Pour the mixture into molds and refrigerate for five hours to set.

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

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

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. 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

Isinglass
Sets the custard into a firm, sliceable form as it chills.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as their proteins set with gentle heat.
New milk
Forms the liquid base, giving the custard its creamy body and moisture.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the yolks and milk.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot milk into the egg mixture. Adding hot milk too fast, without constant stirring, can scramble the egg yolks into lumps. Stirring as the milk goes in gently warms the yolks so they thicken evenly into a smooth custard.

“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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