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Dessert

Boiled Custard

A custard made by thickening milk with corn starch, eggs, and sugar, then cooking until set.

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. Wet the corn starch in a little of the milk.

  2. Heat the remaining milk in a pot over boiling water until near boiling.

  3. Beat the eggs with the sugar.

Make the custard

  1. Add the corn starch to the hot milk, stirring constantly until it thickens.

  2. Add the beaten eggs to the mixture, stirring briskly. Cook for a few minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and beat well. Flavor as desired.

  4. Serve.

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. Milk + corntop 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. Butter + sugartop 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens and the eggs enrich.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the custard body.
Eggs
Add richness and, when gently cooked, help the custard set and thicken.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds to its smooth, soft texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs to the hot mixture. Stirring the beaten eggs in briskly and cooking gently keeps them from scrambling. Egg proteins set at higher temperatures, so the custard should be heated only until it thickens.

“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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