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 ↓
Baked 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the custard
Mix the milk, cream, eggs, sugar, and extract in a bowl until well combined.
Fill custard cups or small tea cups two-thirds full with the mixture.
Place the cups in a baking pan filled with hot water.
Bake and finish
Bake until the custard is set, remembering it will continue to cook after removal from the oven.
If desired, whisk the whites of two eggs, flavor, sprinkle with sugar, and pile on top of the custards when they are partly cooled.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,696 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 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
- Set the custard into a tender, sliceable structure as they cook.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that the eggs coagulate within.
- Sweet cream
- Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture through its fat.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the custard and contributes to its soft, delicate texture.
The step that matters
Bake until just set. Egg proteins firm as the custard heats, and overbaking makes it grainy, weepy, and rubbery. Pull it when the centre still jiggles slightly, since it keeps cooking from residual heat after leaving the oven.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, egg, sugar. 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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