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Dessert

Cheese Custabd

A custard made with milk, egg, sugar, gelatin, cottage cheese, and vanilla, chilled and served with cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cheese Custabd

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk and gradually pour it over the beaten egg yolk.

  2. Add the sweetener and cook until the mixture coats a spoon.

Prepare the gelatin and egg white

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin by placing the cup in boiling water.

  3. Beat the egg white until light.

  4. Add the vanilla and dissolved gelatin to the beaten egg white.

  5. Beat the mixture until very stiff.

Combine and chill

  1. Fold the egg white mixture into the custard mixture.

  2. Chill the pudding.

  3. Just before serving, add the slightly salted cheese.

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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Milk + cottage cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Egg + cottage cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together601 recipes

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

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which thickens when cooked with the egg.
Egg
Thickens the custard when heated and the whites whip into a light, airy foam.
Gelatin
Sets the pudding as it cools, giving it a firm, sliceable body.
Sugar, syrup, or honey
Adds sweetness and helps balance the savory-leaning cheese.
Cottage cheese
Adds body, tang and a creamy texture to the finished pudding.

The step that matters

Beat the egg white until very stiff. Stiff egg white traps air and gives the pudding its lightness. If it is under-beaten, the folded mixture will be dense and may deflate or separate as it chills.

“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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