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Dessert

Almond Custard

A custard made with cream, almonds, rose water, and egg yolks, sweetened to taste.

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

Almond Custard

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 the almonds

  1. Blanch and beat the almonds until smooth.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, combine the cream, almond paste, rose water, and egg yolks.

  2. Sweeten the mixture to your taste.

  3. Cook in a porcelain kettle or a tin custard-pail, stirring continuously over low heat.

Bake or freeze

  1. Alternatively, bake in small china custard cups at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  2. For a frozen version, pour the mixture into a freezer without heating.

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. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the custard.
Almonds
Provide the nutty almond flavour and body once beaten smooth.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set and add richness.
Rose water
Adds a delicate floral aroma.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard to taste.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard over low heat. Egg yolks set at moderate temperatures and can curdle or scramble if heated too quickly. Low heat with constant stirring keeps the custard smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, rose, 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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