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Arrowroot Custard for Invalids

A custard made with arrowroot, milk, egg, and sugar, optionally flavored with cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 166 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Arrowroot Custard for Invalids

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the arrowroot with a little cold milk.

  2. Heat the remaining milk in a saucepan until it boils.

Make the custard

  1. Stir in the arrowroot mixture, beaten egg, and sugar, then let it scald.

Cool and flavor

  1. Pour the mixture into cups to cool.

  2. Add a little cinnamon to the milk for flavor, if desired.

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. Arrowroot + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together166 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Arrowroot + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Arrowroot
Thickens the milk into a smooth custard as its starch swells when heated.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the thickeners set in.
Egg
Its proteins set on heating, adding body and richness to the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor.

The step that matters

Keep stirring as the custard scalds. Arrowroot thickens as its starch granules swell with heat, and the egg can curdle or form lumps if the mixture sits unstirred or overheats. Constant stirring keeps it smooth and evenly thickened.

“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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