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Dessert

Sponge Cake Custard

A custard dessert made with sponge cake, milk, cream, eggs, flour, lemon, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hodgson, Mary, fl. 1855 · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sponge Cake Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Grate some stale sponge cake; upon which put some thin slices.

  2. Whisk three eggs very light; pour on them one pint of boiling milk; season with 84 family receipt book, lemon peel and sugar to the taste.

  3. Mix all well together; bake twenty minutes in a slow oven.

  4. Cover the top with sponge cake, and pile the icing up high in the centre.

Make the cream custard

  1. Take a quart of thick cream.

  2. Mix very smoothly eight teaspoonsful of the finest flour with some of the quart of cream; season to your taste with lemon peel and sugar.

  3. Put the remainder of the cream on the fire, and when it simmers slowly, put in the cream and flour, stirring it very gently till it is thick.

  4. Then pour it out; when perfectly cool, add some lemon juice.

Layer and finish

  1. Place in a dish some macaroons, upon which pour some of the custard.

  2. And so proceed, till all of the custard is in.

  3. Ornament the top with any kind of preserves you prefer.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

745Calories
28 gProtein
20 gFat
112 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Hodgson, Mary, fl. 1855. 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. See the original page.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 and add richness to the base.
Milk
Loosens the custard and adds moisture for a tender texture.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the custard.
Flour
Thickens the cream so the custard holds its shape.
Lemon juice
Adds a bright acidity that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the simmering cream. Flour thickens only when heated in liquid, and stirring gently keeps it from clumping while the starch swells evenly into a smooth, thick custard.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, egg, 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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