Skip to main content
Dessert

Custard, Excellent

A custard made with milk, cream, bay leaf, lemon rind, sugar, egg yolks, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Custard, Excellent

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the milk, cream, bay leaf, lemon rind, and sugar. Simmer gently for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and gradually add the well-beaten egg yolks.

Thicken and finish

  1. Pour the mixture between two jugs for 1-2 minutes.

  2. Place one jug in a saucepan of warm water on the fire.

  3. Stir until the custard thickens.

  4. Remove from heat, add the brandy, and stir until the custard is cold.

  5. Serve in glasses and top each custard with a ratafia.

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

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

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

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

  4. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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 when gently heated, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the custard a smooth, velvety texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the egg yolks thicken into custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream and yolks.
Brandy
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the finished custard.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard over warm water. Egg yolks thicken at gentle heat, and if the custard gets too hot it can curdle or turn grainy. Keeping the heat low and stirring steadily gives a smooth, set texture.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes