Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Custard

A custard made with milk, eggs, sugar, lemon extract, and blanched almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix the milk, eggs, sugar, lemon extract, and pounded almonds together.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, then remove from heat.

  3. Stir until lukewarm.

Cool and serve

  1. Pour into cups or a mold to cool.

  2. If desired, cover with the beaten whites of 4 or 5 eggs just 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. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 when heated, giving it a soft, sliceable body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs set into a smooth custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps keep its texture tender.
Almonds
Add nutty flavor and body to the custard base.

The step that matters

Bringing the mixture to a boil, then removing it from heat. Egg proteins set as the mixture heats, so boiling can curdle or scramble the custard. Removing it promptly from heat keeps it smooth.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Milletfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutfits about as well

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

More almond custard recipes

Cake 6Pudding 6 See all 141 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes