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Dessert

Custard Pudding Baked

A baked custard made with milk, sugar, flour, butter, eggs, lemon rind, bay leaves, salt, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Custard Pudding Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard base

  1. Simmer the milk with the flavoring for about 20 minutes.

  2. Remove the lemon rind.

  3. Add the butter and sugar.

  4. Mix the flour with a little cold milk or water and pour the flour mixture into the milk mixture.

  5. Stir until it boils.

  6. Cook for 5 minutes.

  7. Let it cool slightly.

Bake

  1. Beat the eggs and add the beaten eggs to the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 40 minutes, or until 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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Laurel + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together872 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + laureltop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard into a soft, sliceable texture as they cook.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that becomes the custard body.
Flour
Thickens the milk so the custard holds its shape rather than running.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the milk and eggs.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Let the thickened mixture cool slightly before adding the eggs. Eggs scramble when added to very hot liquid. Cooling the base a little lets the eggs blend in smoothly so the custard sets evenly instead of turning grainy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, flour, butter, egg, laurel, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, flour, butter, egg, laurel, nutmeg. 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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