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Dessert

Fruit Custard

A custard made with milk, cornflour, eggs, and fruit, topped with sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Fruit Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Bring the milk to a boil and sweeten to taste.

  2. Mix the cornflour with enough cold milk to make a stiff paste.

  3. Pour the boiling milk onto the cornflour mixture and stir well.

  4. Return to the heat and stir until slightly thickened.

  5. Remove from heat and beat in the eggs one at a time, ensuring the mixture is not boiling.

Assemble and set

  1. Pick over the raspberries or strawberries and place them in a glass dish.

  2. Sprinkle the fruit with castor sugar and pour the custard over it.

  3. Allow the custard to set when cold.

Serve

  1. Top with additional fruit, sprinkle with castor sugar, and serve with cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Thicken the custard as they set and enrich its texture and color.
Cornflour
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth custard that sets when cooled.
Milk
Forms the body of the custard and carries the sweetness.
Raspberries or strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavor and acidity against the rich custard.

The step that matters

Beat in the eggs off the heat. If the custard boils after the eggs go in, the egg proteins can scramble and turn grainy. Removing the pan from the heat and adding the eggs one at a time keeps the custard 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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