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Dessert

Baked Custard

A custard baked in a water bath with milk, egg yolks, sugar, salt, vanilla, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Baked Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the custard base

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Pour the hot milk over the beaten egg yolks in a bowl.

  3. Add the sugar, salt, and vanilla, and stir to combine.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and check

  1. Pour the custard mixture into a baking dish.

  2. Place the baking dish in a larger pan filled with water.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set, about 30-40 minutes.

  4. Check for doneness by inserting a knife; it should come out clean.

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Milk
Provides the liquid base that sets into the custard when heated with the eggs.
Egg yolks
Their proteins coagulate on heating, setting the custard and adding richness.
Egg whites
Folded in to add air and lightness, and their proteins also help the custard set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the custard tender rather than rubbery.

The step that matters

Bake gently in a water bath until just set. Egg proteins set at moderate heat and turn grainy or watery if overbaked or heated too fast. The water surrounding the dish moderates the oven heat, so the custard sets evenly and stays smooth.

“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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