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Dessert

Custard to Pour Over Fruit Shortcake

A simple custard made from sugar, corn starch, egg, and milk, used to pour over fruit shortcake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Custard to Pour Over Fruit Shortcake

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar and corn starch.

  2. Whisk in the egg and milk until smooth.

  3. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and add flavoring of your choice.

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps keep the cornstarch from clumping when mixed.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the custard its body.
Egg
Adds richness and, as it heats, helps set the custard further.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into a custard.

The step that matters

Cook while stirring constantly. Cornstarch can scorch on the bottom of the pan or form lumps if left unstirred. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and lets the starch thicken into a smooth custard.

“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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