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Custards

A baked carrot custard made with milk, sugar, cinnamon, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Custards

Why it works: Carrot and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 981 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Custards

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the carrots

  1. Boil the carrots until tender.

  2. Strain the carrots through a sieve.

  3. Stir the strained carrots into the cold milk.

Make the custard

  1. Sweeten with sugar and add cinnamon.

  2. Mix in the flour and pour into custard cups.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven 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.

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. Carrot + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together981 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Carrots
Once puréed, adds natural sweetness, moisture and body to the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens as it heats.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the earthy carrot flavour.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the liquid as it heats, helping the custard hold its set.
Ground cinnamon
Adds a warm aroma that complements the sweet carrot flavour.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Flour thickens as it heats, so the custard keeps stiffening in the oven. Removing it once it has just set avoids an overly firm, dry texture.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, cinnamon, flour):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, cinnamon, flour. 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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