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Dessert

Lima Bean Custard

A custard made from cooked lima beans, eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, and butter, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Lima Bean Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the lima beans in cold water to cover.

  2. Drain and cook the beans in boiling water until soft.

  3. Force the cooked beans through a sieve.

Make and bake the custard

  1. Add the remaining ingredients in the order given and mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture into well-greased custard cups.

  3. Place the cups in a pan of hot water.

  4. Bake until a clean knife cut shows the custard is 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.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Lima beans + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together414 recipes

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

  5. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Lima beans
Cooked and sieved, they form the thick body of the custard.
Eggs
Coagulate on heating, setting the custard into a soft, sliceable texture.
Milk
Adds liquid and richness, keeping the custard smooth and tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and contributes to its browning at the surface.
Butter
Adds fat, giving the custard a richer mouthfeel and softer texture.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. Egg proteins set gently when surrounded by hot water. Direct oven heat can overcook the edges and make the custard grainy or watery, so the pan of hot water should be kept in place during baking.

Swap the lima beans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Cocoafits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

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

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