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Dessert

Almond Custards

A custard made with cream, spices, almonds, and rose syrup, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Almond Custards

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Almond Custards

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the custard base

  1. In a pot, combine cream, cinnamon, mace, lemon peel, nutmeg, and sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture for 10 minutes, then strain it.

Add the almonds

  1. Blanch and finely pound the Jordan and bitter almonds.

  2. Rub the almond mixture through a fine sieve and add it to the cream.

  3. Stir in the syrup of roses and the beaten egg yolks.

Fill and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into small cups or a baking dish lined with puff pastry.

  2. Bake until set, if using a baking dish.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides richness and a smooth, fatty body to the custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken and set the custard as they cook, giving it structure.
Jordan almonds
Add nutty flavour and body once blanched and finely pounded into the cream.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the spices and almond flavour.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg yolks set at a moderate temperature; overbaking makes the custard curdle, weep and turn grainy, while underbaking leaves it runny.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, cinnamon, lemon, nutmeg, sugar, almond, syrup):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, cinnamon, lemon, nutmeg, sugar, almond, syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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