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Boiled Custard

A custard made by heating milk, mixing with egg yolks and sugar, then cooking until thickened.

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

Boiled Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. In a bowl, mix sugar and salt with the egg yolks.

  3. Slowly pour the hot milk into the egg mixture while stirring.

  4. Return the mixture to the double boiler and cook until it thickens slightly.

Finish and cool

  1. Strain the custard and let it cool.

  2. Once nearly cold, add the 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 gently and set it into a smooth, creamy texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the egg yolks thicken into a custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the flavor of the egg yolks.

The step that matters

Return the mixture to the double boiler and cook until it thickens slightly. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the heat is too high they can scramble, leaving lumps. Gentle, indirect heat in a double boiler keeps the custard smooth.

“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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