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Dessert

Macaroon Ginger Custard

A custard made with milk, eggs, macaroons, sugar, salt, and preserved ginger, topped with browned meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Macaroon Ginger Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Add the macaroons to the hot milk.

  2. Add the slightly beaten eggs, sugar, and salt.

  3. Bake in a dish set in a pan of hot water until firm, then remove from the heat.

Top and serve

  1. Cover with thin slices of preserved ginger.

  2. Make a meringue with the whites of 2 eggs and 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  3. Brown the meringue in the oven for a few minutes.

  4. Serve cold.

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. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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 that the eggs set into a smooth custard.
Eggs
Their proteins set when heated, giving the custard its firm, sliceable structure.
Macaroons
Absorb the hot milk and add body, flavour and a light almond sweetness to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath until firm. Eggs set at gentle temperatures. Cooking the custard in a dish set in hot water keeps the heat even and mild, so it sets smoothly instead of curdling, weeping or becoming rubbery.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits less 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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