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Dessert

Custard Tartlets

Custard Tartlets are a baked custard made with milk, eggs, flour, optional bitter almonds or lemon rind, and garnished with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Custard Tartlets

Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Custard Tartlets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the custard

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Whisk the eggs in a bowl.

  3. Gradually stir in the flour and then the milk.

  4. If desired, add bitter almonds or lemon rind for flavor.

  5. Pour the custard mixture into a dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Grate a little nutmeg over the top.

  2. Bake for about 30 minutes or until set.

  3. Serve cold, optionally with fruit tarts.

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.

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.

  1. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Set the custard as they cook, giving it structure and a firm texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and gives it a soft, creamy body.
Flour
Thickens the custard and helps it hold its shape when set.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, fuller mouthfeel to the custard.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Eggs set as they heat, so over-baking makes the custard curdle, weep and turn rubbery. Remove it once the centre barely wobbles and it will finish setting as it cools.

“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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