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Dessert

Almond Custard

A custard made with cream, milk, sweet and bitter almonds, rose water, sugar, egg yolks, and topped with frothy egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch the almonds and pound them into a paste, gradually mixing in the rose water.

  2. Powder the sugar and beat the egg yolks until very light.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the cream and milk together, then gradually stir in the sugar, pounded almonds, and beaten egg yolks.

  2. Pour the mixture into a skillet or saucepan and heat it, stirring continuously until it thickens but before it curdles.

  3. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat half of the egg whites to a stiff froth, adding a little powdered sugar and a few drops of lemon oil.

  2. Pour the custard into a glass dish or bowl and top with the frothed egg whites.

  3. Optionally, decorate with nonpareils or sugar sand.

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

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

  2. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 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 with gentle heat, and add richness.
Sweet almonds
Provide the main nut flavour and body when pounded into the custard.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the custard a smooth, silky texture.
Milk
Adds liquid that forms the custard base with the eggs and cream.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff froth to form a light, airy topping.

The step that matters

Heating the custard until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but they curdle if overheated. Stir constantly and stop as soon as the custard coats a spoon.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, almond, rose, sugar, egg. 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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