Why it works: Peach and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Eich Custard
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Mix the cream with the sugar and the beaten egg yolks.
Scald the mixture in a tin pail over boiling water, stirring constantly until thick.
Flavour and serve
Once cool, add the brandy, peach water, lemon brandy, and almond paste.
Pour the mixture into custard cups.
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.
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Peach + almondtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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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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Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Peach + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together947 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Brandy + peachtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together339 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard as they set during gentle scalding and add richness.
- Cream
- Provides the rich body and smooth texture of the custard.
- Powdered white sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps balance the richness of the cream and yolks.
- Blanched almonds
- Add nutty almond flavour and fine body to the custard once pounded to a paste.
The step that matters
Scald the mixture until thick. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating makes them scramble and curdle. Keep the pail over simmering, not boiling, water and stir constantly so the custard thickens smoothly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, sugar, brandy, peach, almond):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, sugar, brandy, peach, almond. 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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