Why it works: Corn and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 485 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Custard Almond
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the custard base
In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together.
Dissolve the corn starch in a little water and add it to the egg mixture.
In a saucepan, bring the sweet cream to a boil.
Make the custard
Stir the egg mixture into the boiling cream and cook until thickened.
Blanch the almonds, chop half of them finely, and stir into the cream.
Split the remaining almonds and lay them on top as decoration.
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.
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Corn + almondtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together485 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,130 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,679 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard as they set and add richness to the texture.
- Sweet cream
- Provides fat and body, giving the custard a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps balance the richness of the yolks and cream.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the custard by swelling with heat, giving a stable, smooth set.
- Almonds
- Add nutty flavour and a bit of texture to the finished custard.
The step that matters
Stir the egg mixture into the boiling cream and cook until thickened. Egg yolks can curdle if they are heated too quickly or too hard. Adding them to hot cream while stirring and cooking gently keeps the custard smooth and lets it thicken evenly.
“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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