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Dessert

Almond Custard

A custard made with milk, eggs, ground almonds, cornflour, rosewater, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,800 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Almond Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk with sugar and ground almonds.

  2. Smooth the cornflour with rosewater.

  3. Stir the cornflour-rosewater mixture into the boiling milk; let it boil for 1 minute.

  4. Beat the eggs.

  5. Reserve 3 egg whites to whip into a stiff froth.

  6. Let the milk cool slightly.

  7. Gradually stir in the beaten eggs, being careful not to curdle them.

  8. Stir the custard over low heat until it is nearly boiling.

  9. Let the custard cool, stirring occasionally.

Serve

  1. Pour the custard into a glass dish.

  2. Top the custard with the whipped egg whites just before serving.

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 + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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 of the custard and carries the other flavours.
Eggs
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, and whipped whites add a light topping.
Allinson cornflour
Thickens the milk when boiled, giving the custard a smooth, spoonable body.
Ground almonds
Add body and nutty almond flavour to the milk base.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the milk and almonds.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs to the milk. Eggs curdle if they get too hot too quickly. Let the milk cool slightly first and stir the eggs in gradually, then heat gently so they thicken the custard smoothly.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Walnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar. 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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