Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Custard in Pastry or Kentish Pudding Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the pastry
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Line a pie dish with puff pastry and prick it well with a fork.
Bake the pastry until lightly golden.
Make the custard
In a bowl, mix the flour with 8 tablespoons of milk and the custard powder.
In a saucepan, boil the remaining milk with sugar and butter until bubbling.
Quickly pour the boiling milk mixture onto the custard mixture, stirring for one minute.
Pour the custard into the baked pastry case.
Bake and serve
Grate a little nutmeg on top and bake until golden brown.
Serve hot or cold.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Puff pastry
- Forms the crisp, flaky case that holds the custard filling.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk so the custard sets into a smooth, sliceable filling.
- Custard powder
- Provides the main custard flavour and helps the filling thicken and set.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds richness and body.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavour to the custard.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard to taste.
The step that matters
Quickly pour the boiling milk mixture onto the custard mixture, stirring for one minute.. Starch in the flour and custard powder must be heated in liquid to thicken. Pouring quickly and stirring steadily keeps the mixture even, so lumps do not form and the custard thickens smoothly.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, sugar, butter):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar, butter. 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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