Name: Baked Custard
Ingredients: 3 pints milk; 6 eggs; pinch of salt; sugar to taste; flavoring to taste

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 ↓

Baked Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the custard

In a bowl, mix the milk, beaten eggs, salt, sugar, and flavoring.
Pour the mixture into cups.

Bake and cool

Place the cups in a baking pan filled with boiling water, ensuring the water reaches the top of the custard.
Bake until set, then transfer the cups to a pan of cold water to cool.
For a larger serving, bake the custard in one large dish.

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.

Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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: Set the custard by coagulating as they heat, giving it a firm, sliceable body.
Milk: Forms the liquid base, providing moisture and creaminess for the custard.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Bake until set, then cool in cold water. Eggs set between about 160°F and 180°F, so overbaking or baking at too high a heat can make the custard curdle, weep, or turn rubbery. Moving the cups to cold water stops the cooking so the texture stays 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.