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Dessert

Boiled Custard

A custard made by boiling sweet cream or milk with vanilla, thickened with cornstarch and egg yolks, served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Boiled Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Bring the sweet cream or milk and water to a boil with the piece of vanilla.

  2. Mix the cornstarch with a little cold water, then add the egg yolks, sugar, and salt.

  3. Add this mixture to the boiling milk, stirring over the heat or in a double boiler until it thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and beat until nearly cold, then put on ice.

Serve

  1. Serve with zwieback and fruit juice or fresh berries.

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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

  5. Vanilla + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and a smooth texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the custard body.
Sweet cream or rich milk
Forms the liquid base and provides fat for a creamy mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream and yolks.

The step that matters

Adding the yolk mixture to the boiling milk. Stirring constantly keeps the egg yolks from scrambling or curdling in contact with hot liquid, while the cornstarch thickens the custard evenly as it heats.

“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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