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Steamed Coffee Custard

A custard made with coffee, eggs, milk, sugar, and salt, steamed in cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Steamed Coffee Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks until well combined.

  2. Add the sugar, hot milk, and salt to the yolks and mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the coffee until well blended.

  4. Pour the mixture into cups and place them in a pan filled with boiling water.

  5. Set the pan on top of the stove and cook until the custard thickens.

Finish

  1. Once done, fill the cups with the beaten and sweetened egg whites.

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. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard as their proteins set when gently heated.
Coffee
Gives the custard its coffee flavour and aroma.
Milk
Adds moisture and a smooth, creamy texture to the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the coffee.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until it thickens. Egg proteins set at moderate heat. Too much heat or too long in the water bath can make the custard grainy or curdled, so watch it closely as it thickens.

“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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