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Frozen Custard

A custard made from milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and cornstarch, then frozen like ice cream.

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

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Frozen Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA very cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Moisten the cornstarch with a little cold milk.

  3. Add the moistened cornstarch to the hot milk and stir until it slightly thickens.

  4. Beat the eggs and sugar together until light. Add them to the hot milk.

  5. Boil for 1 minute.

  6. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.

Cool and freeze

  1. Let it cool.

  2. Freeze like ice cream.

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.

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.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Egg proteins set when heated, thickening the custard and giving it a rich body.
Cornstarch
Starch swells in hot milk and thickens the base so it holds its shape when frozen.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and lowers its freezing point, keeping the frozen texture softer.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs and cornstarch thicken into custard.

The step that matters

Boil for 1 minute after adding the eggs. Eggs can curdle or scramble if overheated, but the custard must reach a boil so the cornstarch fully thickens and the eggs are cooked. Stirring constantly keeps the heat even and the texture smooth.

“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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