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Dessert

Quaking Custard

A custard made with milk, egg yolks, gelatin, sugar, vanilla, and lemon, topped with a meringue.

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 ↓

Quaking Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Soak the gelatin in ½ cup of cold milk for 2 hours.

  2. Add the soaked gelatin to the remaining boiling hot milk and stir until dissolved.

  3. Let it stand for a few minutes, then strain through muslin over the beaten yolks and sugar.

  4. Heat over the fire and stir for 5 minutes, or until it thickens.

  5. When nearly cold, stir well, add flavoring, and let it congeal around the edges of the bowl.

  6. Stir again and pour into a wet mold.

  7. Set on ice or in cold water until firm.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, turn it into a glass bowl.

  2. For the meringue, whip the reserved egg whites stiff with 3 tablespoons of powdered sugar and lemon juice.

  3. Heap the meringue irregularly around the base of the custard.

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. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Vanilla + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 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
Forms the body of the custard, which sets as it cools.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and colour.
Gelatin
Sets the custard so it holds its shape when turned out.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the set.
Egg whites
Whipped stiff to form the light meringue topping.

The step that matters

Heating the custard until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can curdle them. Stirring steadily over the fire keeps the custard smooth while it thickens enough to set.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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