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Dessert

Very Good Old-fashioned Boiled Custard

A custard made by infusing lemon rind in milk, whisking egg yolks, and cooking until thickened, optionally flavored with brandy and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Very Good Old-fashioned Boiled Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the milk

  1. Infuse the lemon rind in 1½ pints of milk for 30 minutes.

  2. Simmer the milk for a few minutes.

  3. Add the sugar to the milk.

  4. Remove the lemon peel.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of 14 eggs.

  2. Mix the beaten yolks with ½ pint of milk.

  3. Stir the boiling milk into the egg mixture quickly.

  4. Pour the custard into a deep jug.

  5. Set the jug over boiling water.

  6. Stir gently until the custard thickens.

  7. Increase stirring speed until it nearly boils.

  8. Remove the custard from heat immediately.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the custard into a bowl.

  2. Stir until the custard is nearly cold.

  3. Gradually add the brandy and blanched almonds, if using.

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. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Brandy + almondtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,969 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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 set with gentle heat, giving it body and richness.
Whole milk
Forms the liquid base and carries the flavour of the lemon rind and sugar.
White sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the yolks and milk.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic citrus flavour to the milk during infusion.

The step that matters

Increase stirring speed until it nearly boils.. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if they overheat or curdle the custard turns grainy. Stirring steadily and removing it from heat just before boiling keeps it smooth.

Swap the almond

The recipe marks almond as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, lemon, sugar, egg, brandy):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Pistachiofits less well

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