Skip to main content
Dessert

Tea Custards

A custard made with cream, green tea, sugar, and eggs, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Tea Custards

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the tea infusion

  1. Boil the cream or milk in a saucepan.

  2. Pour the boiling cream or milk over the green tea and add the loaf sugar.

  3. Cover and let the mixture cool.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl, discarding the whites of 4 eggs.

  2. Stir the beaten eggs into the cooled tea mixture.

  3. Strain the mixture into cups.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the cups in a baking dish filled with water and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  2. Grate sugar over the top of each custard before serving.

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

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

  3. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Green tea + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together159 recipes

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

  5. Cream + green teatop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Egg proteins coagulate on heating, setting the custard into a soft, sliceable texture.
Cream or rich milk
Fat and milk solids give the custard a smooth, rich, tender body.
Green tea
Provides the distinctive tea aroma and a slight bitterness that balances the sweetness.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the custard and contributes to its smooth, tender set.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath until just set. Egg custards turn grainy and weep when overbaked, because the proteins tighten too far and squeeze out liquid. Baking gently in water and removing them once set keeps the texture 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.

More tea custard recipes

Beef 6 See all 3 →

You might also like

Green Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding14 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes