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Dessert

Strawberry Custard

A custard made with egg yolks, milk, sugar, vanilla, and strawberries, finished with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Strawberry Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine egg yolks, milk, sugar, and vanilla. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened.

Make the strawberry float

  1. Crush and strain the strawberries, then mix with powdered sugar. Adjust sweetness if the strawberries are very tart.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually fold in the strawberry mixture.

Serve

  1. Serve the custard in small glass cups and top with the strawberry float.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 yolks
Thicken the milk into a smooth custard as they cook and set.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the egg yolks thicken into custard.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the strawberry float its light, airy structure.
Strawberries
Provide the fruit flavor and moisture of the float.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard base.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the strawberry mixture and blends in smoothly.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thickened, stirring constantly. Egg yolks thicken the milk as they heat, but if they get too hot or are left unstirred they can scramble, leaving lumps and a grainy texture. Constant stirring spreads the heat 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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