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Rennet Custard

A custard made by coagulating milk with rennet, flavored with sherry and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Rennet Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Warm the milk to about 100°F (38°C).

  2. Flavor the milk with sherry and stir until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Add rennet wine and stir gently to mix.

  4. Pour into a large glass dish or custard cups.

Set and serve

  1. Let stand in a warm room until it coagulates.

  2. Refrigerate until serving. Garnish with nutmeg if desired.

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. Sherry + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

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

  4. Vanilla + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

Milk
Forms the body of the custard, which sets into a soft curd when coagulated.
Rennet wine
Contains the rennet that coagulates the milk proteins, causing the custard to set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps flavor the milk before it sets.

The step that matters

Let stand in a warm room until it coagulates. Rennet works best at warm temperatures, so the milk must stay warm long enough to set. If it cools too quickly, coagulation slows or fails and the custard stays loose.

“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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