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Dessert

Soft Custard

A custard made with milk, egg yolks, sugar, corn starch, vanilla, and salt, cooked gently until thick.

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

Soft Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard base

  1. Beat the egg yolks until light, then mix with 2 tablespoons of cold milk.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of milk with the corn starch, then add to the egg mixture.

  3. Heat the remaining milk in a double boiler until hot.

Cook and finish

  1. Stir in the egg and corn starch mixture, cooking for 5 minutes while stirring well.

  2. Remove from heat, add salt, and let cool before adding vanilla.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set with gentle heat.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard by swelling in hot liquid to give a smooth, soft body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard thickens and sets within.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the milk and yolks.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg and corn starch mixture into the hot milk. Egg yolks can scramble if they meet heat too quickly or without constant stirring. Constant stirring while the mixture cooks keeps the yolks smooth and lets the starch thicken evenly.

“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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