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Dessert

Corn Starch Meringue

A custard made with milk, eggs, sugar, and cornstarch, topped with a meringue and jelly, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Corn Starch Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. Dissolve the corn starch in a little cold water.

  3. Stir the dissolved corn starch into the boiling milk.

  4. Boil for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.

  5. Remove the mixture from heat.

  6. Gradually add the beaten yolks of the eggs mixed with sugar and vanilla or lemon.

  7. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered pudding dish.

  8. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes, or until the custard begins to set.

Top and finish

  1. Spread the beaten egg whites mixed with jelly over the top.

  2. Bake covered for 5 minutes to set the meringue.

  3. Remove from the oven.

  4. Brown slightly.

  5. Let cool.

  6. Serve with powdered sugar sifted over the top.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites form the meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that sets when heated.
Corn starch
Thickens the boiling milk so the custard sets smooth and firm.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilise the egg white meringue.
Jelly or jam
Adds fruity sweetness and flavour to the meringue topping.

The step that matters

Boil the cornstarch milk for the full 15 minutes while stirring constantly. Cornstarch only reaches full thickening power once boiling, and stirring prevents scorching on the base. Undercooked starch leaves the custard thin and grainy-tasting.

“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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