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Dessert

Rich Custard

A custard made with cream, egg yolks, sugar, brandy, peach water, lemon brandy, and almond paste, chilled until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Rich Custard

Why it works: Peach and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rich Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix the cream and powdered sugar in a bowl.

  2. Beat the egg yolks well and add them to the cream mixture.

  3. Scald the mixture in a double boiler, stirring constantly until thickened.

Flavour and set

  1. Once cool, add the brandy, peach water, lemon brandy, and almond paste.

  2. Pour the custard into cups and refrigerate 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.

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. Peach + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Peach + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together947 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Brandy + peachtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides richness and body, giving the custard a smooth, creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they heat and add richness and structure when set.
Powdered white sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves smoothly into the cream.
Blanched almonds
Add nutty flavour and body to the custard once pounded into a paste.

The step that matters

Scald the mixture in a double boiler, stirring constantly until thickened. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated. Gentle, constant stirring over indirect heat lets the yolks thicken the cream evenly into a smooth custard.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, sugar, brandy, peach, almond):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, sugar, brandy, peach, almond. 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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