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Dessert

Crsam for Fruit Tart

A custard made from milk, cinnamon, peach leaves, bitter almonds, eggs, and sugar, used as a filling for fruit tarts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cinnamon and almond 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 ↓

Crsam for Fruit Tart

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the cinnamon, peach leaves, and bitter almonds in the milk.

  2. Strain the mixture and sweeten it to taste.

  3. Let it cool, then mix in the beaten eggs.

  4. Stir constantly over low heat until it thickens.

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. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Peach + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Cinnamon + peachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

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, thickening the milk into a smooth, sliceable cream.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the infused flavours.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the milk and eggs.

The step that matters

Stir constantly over low heat until it thickens. Egg proteins set at gentle heat, but if the custard gets too hot or is left unstirred, the eggs can scramble and curdle. Constant stirring over low heat keeps it smooth as it thickens.

Swap the peach

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

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

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