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Dessert

Plain Custard

A custard made with milk, eggs, sugar, and optional flavoring, folded with beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Plain Custard

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 ↓

Plain Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk almost to boiling in a double boiler.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks until light, then stir in the sugar.

  3. Gradually add the hot milk to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Return the mixture to the double boiler and cook gently until thickened, stirring constantly.

Finish and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the custard.

  2. Flavor the custard to taste, then pour it into 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. 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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard as they cook, while whipped whites add lightness when folded in.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the egg proteins set into a smooth custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the set texture of the custard.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thickened. Egg proteins set gently with heat, so cooking slowly and stirring constantly keeps the custard smooth. Too much heat can curdle the eggs into lumps.

“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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