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Dessert

Baked Custard

A custard baked in cups, made with sugar, eggs, milk, nutmeg, and lemon or vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard

  1. Beat the sugar and eggs together in a bowl.

  2. Scald the milk.

  3. Pour the milk over the egg mixture, stirring well.

  4. Add more sugar.

  5. Add lemon or vanilla for flavor.

Fill and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into china cups.

  2. Set the cups in a pan of hot water.

  3. Grate a little nutmeg on top of each cup.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until firm.

  5. Insert a straw to check doneness.

  6. If the straw comes out milky, bake longer.

  7. Check that the custard quivers like jelly when done.

Serve

  1. Serve cold from the cups.

  2. Pour into a pudding dish.

  3. Bake again in hot water.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving it a firm, sliceable structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a soft, creamy custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the savory taste of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Egg proteins set as the custard heats; overbaking forces out water and makes it grainy or watery, so check for a slight quiver in the center.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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