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Dessert

Common Custard

A baked custard made with eggs, milk, sugar, flavoring, salt, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Common Custard

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Common Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs until light.

  2. Stir the eggs into the milk.

  3. Sweeten to taste and add the flavoring and salt.

  4. Grease a baking dish or tin basin with butter.

Bake

  1. Pour the custard mixture into the dish and grate nutmeg on top.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 45 minutes.

  3. Check for doneness by inserting a teaspoon handle into the center; it should come out clean.

Bake in cups instead

  1. Alternatively, butter small cups and place them in a shallow pan of hot water.

  2. Fill the cups with the custard mixture and keep the water boiling until done.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  3. Peach + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard into a tender structure as they cook.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the custard its body and softness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the rich, eggy custard.

The step that matters

Checking doneness. Eggs set as they heat, and overbaking can make the custard curdled and grainy. A clean-coming test shows it is set but not overcooked.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

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

More custard recipes

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