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Cream, Patissiere

A smooth custard made from flour, eggs, milk, sugar, lemon rind, optional crushed ratafias and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream, Patissiere

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the flour smoothly with the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the boiling milk, stirring continuously.

  3. Sweeten with sugar rubbed on lemon rind.

  4. Heat the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens, but do not let it boil.

Finish

  1. For added flavor, mix in crushed ratafias or a little brandy before using.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Fine flour
Thickens the custard as it cooks, giving it a smooth, set body.
Eggs
Add richness and help the cream thicken when gently heated.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour and eggs thicken.

The step that matters

Heat over low heat without boiling. Stirring constantly over low heat keeps the eggs and flour from scrambling or lumping. Letting it boil can curdle the eggs and leave the cream grainy, so stop once it thickens.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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