Skip to main content
Dessert

Custard Cream Meringue

A custard cream topped with meringue, baked briefly.

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

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Custard Cream Meringue

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Scald the cream in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks, then add granulated sugar and salt.

  3. Pour the hot cream over the egg mixture, stirring well.

  4. Return the mixture to the heat and cook until thick, stirring constantly.

  5. Add the vanilla and strain into a dish to cool.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add powdered sugar.

  2. Pile the meringue on top of the cooled cream and place in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 10 minutes.

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

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

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

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

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites whip into the stiff meringue topping.
Cream or milk
Provides the liquid and richness that the egg yolks set into a custard.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps protect the yolks from curdling during cooking.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves readily into the whipped whites to sweeten and stabilise the meringue.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thick. Egg yolks set as they heat, so cooking gently while stirring constantly prevents lumps and scrambling. Stop once it thickens, because overheating makes the custard curdle.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes