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Dessert

Cream Nut Filling

A sweet filling made from egg yolks, sugar, milk, cornstarch, and walnuts or figs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and walnut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,236 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Cream Nut Filling

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine egg yolks, sugar, milk, and cornstarch.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in chopped walnuts or figs.

  4. Let cool before using.

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 + walnuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Egg + walnuttop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,037 recipes

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

Sugar and milk 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and a smooth texture as they set.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, stable cream when heated.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream that the yolks and cornstarch thicken.
English walnuts
Add chopped nut texture and a rich, toasty flavor to the cream.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated, and cornstarch needs to reach a boil to reach full thickening. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly and prevents lumps and scorched spots on the pan bottom.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk. 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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