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Creams and Custards

A custard made by beating eggs, sugar, salt, and milk, then baking or boiling until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Creams and Custards

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the custard base

  1. Beat the eggs in a stone or earthenware bowl, separating the whites and yolks.

  2. Combine the yolks with sugar and salt, then mix in the milk.

Bake

  1. Bake in a baking dish at 350°F (175°C) until firm in the center.

Make a boiled custard

  1. For boiled custards, place milk in a pan set within a kettle of boiling water.

  2. When the milk foams, add sugar and stir until slightly thickened, without curdling.

  3. Remove from heat and cool in cold water or a cold dish.

  4. Add flavoring after removing from heat.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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

Eggs
Egg proteins set as they heat, giving the custard its firm structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and supplies moisture for a tender custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Stirring the boiled custard without curdling. Egg proteins set gently at moderate heat. If the mixture overheats or is not stirred, the proteins tighten and scramble, so the custard curdles instead of thickening smoothly. Keep the heat gentle and stir steadily.

“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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