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Dessert

Cold Custard

A chilled custard made from milk, egg yolks, sugar, salt, and optional flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cold Custard

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 ↓

Cold Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the milk

  1. Wet a saucepan with cold water to prevent burning.

  2. Pour out the water and add 1 quart of milk; boil and let it cool slightly.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of 6 eggs, then mix in 3 ounces of sugar and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

  2. Add the lukewarm milk to the egg mixture and stir well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a double saucepan and stir over heat until it thickens to a cream‑like consistency.

  4. Strain the custard and let it cool almost completely before adding flavoring if desired.

Chill and serve

  1. Pour the custard into cups and place them on ice until ready to serve, or freeze in a freezer.

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 + 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Milk
Forms the main liquid base that the egg yolks thicken into a custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps keep its texture smooth as it sets.

The step that matters

Stir the custard over heat until it thickens. Egg yolks begin to set around 160°F, so gentle heat and constant stirring are needed. Overheating can curdle the eggs, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth cream-like 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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