Why it works: Cinnamon and laurel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 691 recipes. Both carry cinnamyl acetate, which smells sweet aromatic, cinnamon. The science ↓
Custards
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Boil the sweet milk with cinnamon, lemon rind, laurel leaves or bitter almonds, and sugar.
Beat the yolks of 8 eggs and the whites of 4 eggs.
Add a little milk to the beaten eggs.
Strain the egg mixture into another dish.
Once the milk boils, remove it from the heat.
Strain the boiled milk.
Make the custard
Stir the egg mixture into the hot milk.
Return the mixture to the saucepan.
Heat while stirring constantly until it reaches boiling point.
Remove from heat.
Pour into a large jug.
Continue stirring until cooled.
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.
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Cinnamon + laureltop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together691 recipes
Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).
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Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Lemon + laureltop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,239 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
- Eggs
- Egg proteins set as they heat, thickening the milk into a custard.
- Sweet milk
- Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a smooth custard.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the milk and eggs.
- Cinnamon
- Infuses the milk with a warm aroma during boiling.
The step that matters
Heating the egg mixture while stirring constantly. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the mixture overheats or stops being stirred, it can curdle or turn grainy instead of thickening smoothly. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cinnamon, laurel, sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonthe original
- Figfits about as well
- Pumpkinfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cinnamon, laurel, sugar, egg. 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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