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Baked Custards

A sweet baked custard made with eggs, almonds, cream, milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Baked Custards

Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Baked Custards

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the custard base

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and add sugar to taste, then mix in the pounded bitter and sweet almonds.

  2. Boil the cream and milk with bay leaves and cinnamon.

  3. Pour the hot mixture into the egg mixture and mix well.

  4. Strain through a fine sieve and skim off the froth.

Bake

  1. Fill cups with the mixture and bake in a warm oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.

  2. Optionally, add grated lemon peel or nutmeg before baking.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Set the custard as they cook, giving it a firm, sliceable structure.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the custard.
Milk
Thins the custard base and adds moisture for a soft, silky set.
Sweet almonds
Contribute nutty flavour and body to the custard base.
Bitter almonds
Add a concentrated almond aroma and distinctive, slightly sharp flavour.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture into the egg mixture and mix well. Adding very hot liquid to eggs too quickly can scramble them. Mixing well while pouring spreads the heat evenly so the custard sets smooth rather than grainy.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, almond, cream, milk, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, almond, cream, milk, cinnamon. 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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