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Dessert

Plain Custards

A custard made by steeping peach leaves in milk, then adding eggs and sugar, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plain Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Tie together the peach leaves and boil them in milk with the broken cinnamon stick.

  2. Strain the milk and let it cool completely.

  3. Beat the eggs lightly and gradually stir them into the cold milk.

  4. Add the sugar gradually and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill cups with the mixture and place them in a Dutch oven.

  2. Pour boiling water around the cups until it reaches nearly the tops.

  3. Heat the oven with hot coals underneath and on the lid, and bake for about 20 minutes.

  4. Serve cold with grated nutmeg on top.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Peach + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Set the custard into a tender, sliceable structure as they cook.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and sets around the eggs.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the set custard's flavour.
Peach leaves
Infused into the milk to add a subtle almond-like aroma.
Cinnamon stick
Infused into the milk to add warm, aromatic spice.

The step that matters

Let the milk cool completely before adding the eggs. Adding beaten eggs to hot milk can scramble them and leave a grainy texture. Cooling the milk first lets the eggs blend smoothly so the custard sets evenly and silky.

Swap the peach

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

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

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