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Dessert

Boiled Custard

A custard made by boiling milk with cinnamon and sugar, then tempering eggs and cooking until thick.

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

Boiled Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk, cinnamon, and sugar together.

  2. Beat the yolks of three eggs with the white of one.

  3. Strain the mixture into another dish.

  4. Remove the milk from the heat.

  5. Pour the milk onto the eggs, stirring constantly.

  6. Return the mixture to the saucepan.

  7. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

Cool and thicken

  1. Transfer the custard to a basin.

  2. Stir until cool and thick.

  3. Place the milk and egg mixture in a jar in a saucepan of hot water.

  4. Stir until thick, then cool.

Serve

  1. Pour the custard into glasses.

  2. Grate a little nutmeg on top before serving.

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. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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
Proteins set as they heat, thickening the milk into a smooth custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the custard its body and creaminess.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavour of the eggs and milk.
Cinnamon
Infused into the hot milk, it adds a warm aroma to the custard.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard over low heat while stirring constantly. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures. If the heat is too high or stirring stops, the eggs can curdle or scramble instead of producing a smooth, thickened custard.

“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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