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Strawberry Custard

A custard made with milk, eggs, salt, sugar, and strawberry juice, finished with stiff‑egg‑white topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Strawberry Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine milk, eggs, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and add flavoring.

Make the strawberry topping

  1. Crush strawberries and strain to extract juice.

  2. Beat egg whites until stiff, gradually adding sugar.

  3. Mix in the sweetened strawberry juice while continuing to beat until stiff.

  4. Pour the strawberry mixture over the custard.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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
Thicken the custard as they set when heated, giving it body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which thickens when heated with the eggs.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff foam that gives the topping its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the whipped whites and helps stabilize their foam.
Strawberries
Supply the fruit flavor and acidity of the topping through their juice.

The step that matters

Beat egg whites until stiff, gradually adding sugar.. Whites must be beaten to stiff peaks without deflating; adding sugar gradually helps stabilize the foam. Adding the strawberry juice too early or any trace of fat or yolk can prevent the whites from reaching full volume.

“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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