So Make A Spanishe Creame

This recipe for 'Spanish Cream' hails from the early 18th century, found in the household collection of Ann Goodenough, a woman active in England between 1700 and 1775. The dish is an example of Anglo-European culinary cross-pollination, evoking both Spanish and English dairy traditions such as clotted cream, but elevated with luxury flavorings like rosewater, musk, and ambergris—ingredients associated with affluence and refined taste at the time. Dishes like this were showpieces for aristocratic tables, combining advanced dairy techniques with fashionable scents and flavors. The process reflects the leisurely pacing of historic cream desserts, requiring time and patience more than complicated equipment.

In the 18th century kitchen, this dish would demand a large cauldron or pot for heating the milk, shallow ceramic basins for setting the cream, and earthenware or glass pans for mixing. Removal of the clotted cream would be performed using a long-handled skimmer. For flavoring, a square of fine silk (tiffany), muslin, or linen would be fashioned into a sachet to infuse musk and ambergris into rosewater. To whip or beat the cream, cooks used a silver or pewter ladle or a large wooden spoon—metal thought to keep the cream cool and avoid odd tastes. No mechanical beaters: all lightness was achieved by hand.