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Dessert

Fried Cream

A custard made of milk, sugar, butter, egg yolks, and corn starch, cooled and cut into squares, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fried Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk and sugar, and heat until warm.

  2. In a bowl, whisk together egg yolks and corn starch until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the warm milk mixture to the egg yolks, stirring constantly.

  4. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium heat until thickened.

  5. Pour the mixture into a greased dish and let it cool completely.

Fry and serve

  1. Once cooled, cut into squares and fry in melted butter until golden brown.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 structure once heated.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture as it cooks, giving the custard a firm, sliceable set.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens into a creamy body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds to its body as it sets.
Butter
Fat that browns in the pan, adding flavor and a golden crust when frying.

The step that matters

Let the custard cool completely before cutting and frying. Starch-thickened custard only sets firmly as it cools; cutting it while warm can cause squares to collapse or tear, and frying a soft piece will not brown evenly.

“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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