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Dessert

Cold Custard

A chilled milk custard sweetened with sugar and set with wine or water-activated rennet, served with cream and optional nutmeg.

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

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cold Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sweeten the milk with white sugar to taste.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of wine that has had rennet soaked in it.

  3. Add more wine if needed for flavor.

  4. Soak the rennet in water instead of using wine, if preferred.

  5. Prepare the custard one hour before serving in warm weather to ensure the curd is soft.

  6. Stir the mixture after the rennet is added.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into cups to coagulate or serve in a glass bowl.

  2. Serve with cream.

  3. Optionally sprinkle with grated nutmeg.

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

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

  2. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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

Milk
Forms the body of the custard as the rennet sets it into a soft curd.
Rennet
Enzyme that coagulates the milk proteins, setting the custard into a soft curd.
White sugar
Adds sweetness to the milk before it sets.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture after the rennet is added. Rennet must be evenly distributed through the milk so the whole batch sets uniformly. Stirring too little leaves unset or uneven patches, while the curd should be left undisturbed once it begins to set.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, wine, cream):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Peppermintfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, wine, cream. 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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