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Dessert

Boiled Custard

A custard made by mixing corn starch, milk, eggs, sugar, butter, and salt, then boiling briefly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boiled Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix corn starch with a small quantity of milk and flavor it.

  2. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.

  3. Heat the remaining milk to near boiling.

Cook the custard

  1. Add the mixed corn starch, eggs, sugar, butter, and salt to the hot milk.

  2. Boil for 2 minutes, stirring briskly.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the custard as its starch granules swell and gelatinize when boiled.
Eggs
Add richness and help thicken the custard as their proteins set with heat.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the thickeners set into a smooth custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the milk and eggs.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother mouthfeel and richer flavor.

The step that matters

Boil for 2 minutes, stirring briskly. Corn starch needs to reach a boil to thicken fully, but egg proteins can curdle if the mixture overheats or sits unstirred. Constant, brisk stirring spreads heat evenly so the custard thickens smoothly.

“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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