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Dessert

Morris Custard

A custard made with milk, corn starch, sugar, egg yolks, salt, and flavored with extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Morris Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, bring 1 pint of milk to a boil.

  2. Stir in 1 teaspoon of corn starch and ½ cup of sugar.

  3. Add the yolks of 2 eggs and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

  4. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

Finish

  1. Remove from heat and add extract to flavor.

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 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 liquid base that the custard thickens and sets within.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the custard its body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps keep it smooth and glossy.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they heat and add richness and a silky texture.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the custard overheats, while the starch needs enough heat to thicken. Gentle, constant stirring spreads heat evenly and keeps the custard 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.

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