Why it works: Cinnamon and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 625 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓
Custards
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard base
Boil the milk with lemon peel and cinnamon until it tastes of the seasoning.
Mix the cream and beaten egg yolks in a bowl.
Sweeten the milk to taste.
Pour the milk into the cream mixture and stir well.
Cook and flavor
Simmer the custard until it thickens, stirring continuously without letting it boil.
Flavor with peach water and brandy before serving.
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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Cinnamon + peachtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together625 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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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 + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together781 recipes
Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).
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 with gentle heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
- Cream
- Adds fat and richness, giving the custard a smooth, velvety texture.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the yolks thicken into a pourable custard.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the cream and yolks.
The step that matters
Simmer the custard until it thickens. Egg yolks set at low heat but curdle if they get too hot. Stirring constantly and keeping the custard below a boil spreads the heat evenly and keeps it smooth.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cinnamon, cream, egg, sugar, peach, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cinnamon, cream, egg, sugar, peach, brandy. 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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