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Dessert

Cold Custard

A chilled dessert made from milk, vanilla, sugar, and rennet, served with sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cold 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 ↓

Cold Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Warm the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add vanilla and sugar, stirring to combine.

  3. Pour the mixture into a deep dish.

  4. Stir in the prepared rennet thoroughly.

Set and serve

  1. Let it stand in a cool place for 2 hours.

  2. Serve with sugar and 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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Milk
Forms the body of the custard, and its proteins set into a soft gel once rennet is added.
Prepared rennet
Enzyme that curdles the milk proteins so the custard sets into a delicate, spoonable gel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the mild flavour of the milk.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma that rounds out the flavour of the milk.

The step that matters

Stir in the prepared rennet thoroughly. Rennet must be evenly distributed through the milk so that it coagulates the proteins uniformly. Unmixed pockets can set unevenly, leaving soft spots or a grainy texture in the finished custard.

“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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