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Dessert

Custard Meringue

A custard base topped with a sweet meringue, baked until pale brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Custard Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°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 just about to boil.

  2. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks and cornstarch with a little milk until smooth.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the hot milk and flavor with liquor.

  4. If using stale cake, dip it in wine and place it at the bottom of the dish before adding the custard.

  5. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add a little sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the custard and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes until pale brown.

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. Milk + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (fenugreek, curry).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with heat, giving it a rich body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard holds its shape when cut.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the meringue topping and browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the whipped whites hold their stiff structure.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard, setting into a soft, creamy texture when thickened.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be beaten to stiff peaks with sugar added gradually so the foam holds its air and bakes into a stable, light meringue instead of weeping or collapsing.

“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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