Name: Jelly Custard
Ingredients: apple, peach, or orange jelly; cold water; cold boiled custard (made from 1 pint of milk, yolks of 3 eggs, 2 teaspoons of sugar, and a pinch of salt); whites of 3 eggs; sponge cake

Why it works: Apple and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Jelly Custard

Ingredients

apple, peach, or orange jelly
cold water
cold boiled custard (made from 1 pint of milk, yolks of 3 eggs, 2 teaspoons of sugar, and a pinch of salt)
whites of 3 eggs
sponge cake

Directions

Prepare the jelly

Prepare apple, peach, or orange jelly.
Dip jelly glasses in cold water.
Half fill the glasses with jelly.
Let the glasses cool.

Make the custard

Prepare cold boiled custard by boiling 1 pint of milk with the yolks of 3 eggs, 2 teaspoons of sugar, and a pinch of salt in a kettle of water for 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

Make a meringue with the whites of 3 eggs.
Heap the meringue on the surface of the custard.
Serve with sponge cake.

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.

Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,104 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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 meringue topping.
Milk: Forms the liquid base of the custard, which sets as it cooks and cools.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to the custard and meringue.
Apple, peach, or orange jelly: Sets in the glasses to form the firm base layer under the custard.