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Dessert

Cream Custard

A custard made from cream, milk, sugar, cornstarch, and egg whites, flavored with lemon, almond, vanilla, or raspberry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cream Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk and cream together.

  2. While boiling, add the sugar and cornstarch dissolved in a little cold milk.

  3. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  4. Add the beaten egg whites just before removing from heat, stirring lightly.

  5. Boil for five minutes after adding the cornstarch.

Serve

  1. Pour into cups with a few drops of different flavoring in each, or mold it.

  2. Serve cold with cream.

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

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch thickens into a custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the flavor.
Cornstarch
Thickens the boiling liquid into a set custard.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they lighten the custard's texture.

The step that matters

Add the beaten egg whites just before removing from heat. Stirring lightly keeps the whipped foam from collapsing, so the custard stays light. Removing the pot from heat first limits overcooking of the delicate foam.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, sugar, egg. 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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