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Custard Pudding, Baked

A baked custard made with milk, lemon rind, sugar, eggs, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Custard Pudding, Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Infuse the milk

  1. In a saucepan, combine the milk, sugar, and lemon rind. Let it infuse for about 30 minutes until well flavored.

Make the custard

  1. Whisk the eggs (both yolks and whites) in a bowl.

  2. Pour the infused milk into the eggs while stirring continuously.

Prepare and fill the dish

  1. Prepare a pie dish lined with pre-baked pastry.

  2. Strain the custard mixture into the dish and grate a little nutmeg on top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 30 to 40 minutes, or until set.

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 + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Set the custard as their proteins coagulate with gentle heat, giving it body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the custard its moisture and creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the set custard's texture.
Lemon rind
Infuses aromatic oils from the peel into the milk for a citrus flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the infused milk to the eggs. Egg proteins set with heat, so pouring the milk in while stirring continuously blends it in evenly and helps prevent the eggs from cooking into lumps or curdling.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg. 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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