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Dessert

Soft Custard with Corn-starch

A light custard made with milk, egg yolks, sugar, corn starch, vanilla, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 with Corn-starch

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the starch and eggs

  1. Mix 2 tablespoons cold milk with corn starch until smooth.

  2. Beat egg yolks until light, then stir in 2 tablespoons milk until smooth.

  3. Combine egg mixture with dissolved corn starch.

Cook and cool

  1. Heat remaining milk in a double boiler until scalding.

  2. Stir in egg and corn starch mixture and cook for 3 minutes.

  3. Season with salt and set aside to cool.

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 + 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base and provides richness as the custard thickens.
Egg yolks
Their proteins set as the custard heats, adding body and richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the custard.
Corn starch
Swells when heated and thickens the milk into a smooth custard.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma to the custard.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the hot milk. Stir constantly while adding the egg and starch mixture to the hot milk. Stirring spreads the heat evenly, so the egg yolks don't scramble and the starch thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

“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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