Skip to main content
Dessert

Maccaroon Custards

A custard made with cream, milk, cinnamon, peach leaves, bitter almonds, sugar, eggs, and maccaroon, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Maccaroon Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard base

  1. Prepare china custard cups.

  2. Place a maccaroon in the bottom of each cup.

  3. Pour a tablespoonful of white wine over the maccaroon.

  4. Combine a pint of cream and a pint of milk in a pot.

  5. Boil the mixture with a large stick of cinnamon, a small bunch of peach leaves, and a handful of broken bitter almonds.

  6. Strain the milk.

  7. Stir in a quarter pound of white sugar.

  8. Set the mixture aside to cool.

  9. Beat eight eggs lightly, omitting the whites of four.

  10. Gradually stir the beaten eggs into the cooled cream and milk mixture.

Bake and finish

  1. Fill the cups with the mixture, leaving the maccaroon at the bottom.

  2. Place the filled cups in a Dutch oven or iron baking pan that is half full of boiling water.

  3. Heat the oven lid by standing it up before a hot fire, then place it on the pan, spreading coals over the top.

  4. Place sufficient coals under the oven and bake the custards for about ten minutes.

  5. When cold, heap beaten egg white on the top of each custard.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

399Calories
16 gProtein
20 gFat
42 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Peach1 medium (150g)59
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
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 Eliza Leslie. 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. 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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs set when heated, giving the custard its body and structure.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the custard a smooth, silky texture.
Milk
Provides liquid that sets with the eggs into a tender custard.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavour of the custard.

The step that matters

Gradually stir the beaten eggs into the cooled cream and milk mixture.. If the cream is still hot when the eggs go in, the eggs can scramble and curdle. Cooling first and adding the eggs gradually keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the peach

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

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

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

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesPeach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipesPeach FrittersPeach Fritters55 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipes