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Dessert

Soft Custards

A custard made with egg whites, whole eggs, milk, sugar, salt, and optional fruit juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and milk 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 ↓

Soft Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until hot.

  2. Whisk together the egg whites and whole eggs in a bowl.

  3. Gradually add the hot milk to the eggs, stirring constantly.

  4. Add sugar and salt to taste.

  5. If using fruit juice, reduce the amount of milk accordingly.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the mixture in a double boiler, stirring until it thickens.

  2. Serve warm or chilled.

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. Egg + milktop 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

Egg whites
Set and firm the custard as they cook, giving it structure.
Whole eggs
Add richness and help the custard thicken as it cooks.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and moisture that the eggs set into a custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the eggs. Pouring hot milk in all at once can scramble the eggs. Adding it gradually while stirring constantly tempers the eggs so they blend smoothly and thicken evenly.

“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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