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Dessert

Raspberry or Currant Custard

A custard made with raspberry or currant juice, sugar, egg yolks, cream, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Raspberry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,109 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Raspberry or Currant Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Make a rich syrup by combining the raspberry or currant juice with the loaf sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Skim the syrup and gradually stir in the well-beaten egg yolks over a very slow fire.

Thicken and finish

  1. Continue stirring for 5 to 6 minutes until thickened.

  2. Pour the mixture out and let it cool.

  3. As it cools, gradually stir in the cream and lemon juice.

  4. Serve in cups.

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. Raspberry + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  3. Raspberry + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 gently over heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the custard.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the juice and helps form a rich syrup base.
Raspberry or currant juice
Provides the main fruit flavour and liquid base of the custard.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and fruit flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolks into the syrup over a very slow fire. Egg yolks set at around 70°C and can scramble if overheated or added too quickly. Gentle heat and constant stirring let the custard thicken smoothly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raspberry, sugar, egg, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, sugar, egg, 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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