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Dessert

Baked Custard

A custard made with condensed milk, water, flour, sugar, eggs, lime juice, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lime and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 236 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the condensed milk with the cold water until smooth.

  2. Stir in the flour and add a little sugar.

  3. Beat in the eggs and lime juice until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 20 minutes.

  3. Sprinkle nutmeg on top if desired.

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. Lime + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together236 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Condensed milk + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + limetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard into a soft, sliceable structure as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the custard holds its shape rather than running.
Condensed milk
Adds sweetness, body and creaminess to the custard.
Lime juice
Adds a small amount of acidity that brightens the sweet, rich flavour.

The step that matters

Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 20 minutes. Eggs set through gentle heat, so an oven that runs too hot can curdle or puff the custard and leave it grainy. Baking gently in a water-based mixture keeps it smooth and tender.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (condensed milk, flour, sugar, egg, lime):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Turmericfits less well

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