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Plain Custard

A simple custard made with milk, egg yolks, sugar, flour, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Plain Custard

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Plain Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Beat the egg yolks until light.

  3. Mix the sugar and flour into the egg yolks.

Make the custard

  1. Add the egg mixture to the scalded milk.

  2. Cook until thickened, stirring constantly.

  3. Flavor with vanilla.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and vanilla 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 as they cook and add richness to its texture.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that the yolks thicken into a custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the eggs and milk.
Flour
Stabilizes the custard so it thickens more evenly and holds its body.

The step that matters

Cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Egg yolks set when heated, and if the custard gets too hot or is left unstirred, the yolks can curdle or scramble. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the custard thickens smoothly.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

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