Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Custard
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
Combine loaf sugar and enough water in a saucepan and boil without stirring until it turns a golden toffee color.
Quickly pour the caramel into a dry souffle tin or cake mold, turning gently to coat the sides, and allow it to set.
Make the custard
Beat the egg yolks, egg whites, and caster sugar together.
Boil the milk and pour it over the egg mixture, then strain into the prepared mold.
Steam and turn out
Cover with buttered paper and steam gently until firm, ensuring the water barely simmers.
Let it cool, then turn it out onto a dish.
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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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help the custard set into a tender, sliceable texture when heated.
- Egg whites
- Coagulate with gentle heat to give the custard its firm, set structure.
- Milk
- Supplies the liquid base, giving the custard a soft, creamy, silky texture.
- Loaf sugar
- Cooks to a golden caramel that coats the mold and forms the sauce once inverted.
- Caster sugar
- Sweetens the egg mixture and dissolves smoothly into it before cooking.
The step that matters
Steam gently with barely simmering water. Egg proteins set best at moderate heat. If the water boils hard, the custard can become bubbly, pitted, or rough-textured, and the proteins may tighten and weep liquid.
“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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