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Fancy Custard

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fancy Custard

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Layer custard and chopped pineapple, nuts, or coconut in a glass until filled.

  2. Beat egg whites until stiff and sweeten to taste.

  3. Spread the meringue on top of the custard.

  4. Garnish with a cherry, additional chopped nuts, cinnamon, or nutmeg.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pineapple + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together651 recipes

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

  3. Pineapple + cherrytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together537 recipes

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

  4. Coconut + cherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Cherry + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together551 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pineapple, coconut, egg, sugar, cherry, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, coconut, egg, sugar, cherry, cinnamon, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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