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Almond Custards

A sweet custard made with almonds, sugar, cream, rose water, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Almond Custards

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond paste

  1. Blanch the almonds and blend them into a smooth paste with 1 tablespoon of water, adding a few drops as needed.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, combine the rose-water, cream, beaten egg yolks, almonds, and sugar.

  2. Place the mixture over boiling water and stir until it thickens.

Serve

  1. Serve in cups.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they set on gentle heat, giving the custard its body.
Cream
Provides richness and moisture, forming the liquid base that the yolks set into custard.
Sweet almonds
Supply nutty flavour and body through the smooth almond paste folded into the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream and yolks.

The step that matters

Thickening over boiling water. Egg yolks set at around 70°C, so the mixture must be stirred gently over simmering water. If it gets too hot, the yolks scramble and the custard turns grainy.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Walnutfits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, rose, egg. 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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