Skip to main content
Dessert

Baked Custard Pudding

A baked custard made with milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, nutmeg, and served with stewed rhubarb.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By T. R. Allinson · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Baked Custard Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Warm the milk.

  2. Beat the eggs with the sugar.

  3. Pour the warm milk over the eggs and add vanilla flavouring and nutmeg.

  4. Line the edge of a pie dish with baked paste.

  5. Strain the custard into the lined pie dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Grate a little nutmeg over the top.

  2. Bake in a slow oven for 1/2 an hour.

  3. Serve in the pie dish with stewed rhubarb.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

239Calories
15 gProtein
13 gFat
16 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Waternot in our table0

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

By T. R. Allinson. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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

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

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and gives it a soft, creamy body.
Eggs
Set as they heat, giving the custard its structure and firm but tender texture.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven. Egg proteins set gently at low heat. Too much heat makes them tighten too far, so the custard curdles, turns grainy and weeps liquid.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes