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Dessert

Almond Custard

A custard made from bitter and sweet almonds, milk, cinnamon, lemon rind, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Soak the bitter and sweet almonds in water for a few hours, then grind them into a paste.

  2. Combine the milk, cinnamon stick, and lemon rind in a saucepan.

  3. Heat the mixture until just below boiling.

  4. Remove from heat and let steep for 10 minutes.

  5. Strain the milk mixture to remove the cinnamon and lemon rind.

Make the custard

  1. Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the warm milk to the yolks, stirring constantly.

  3. Return the mixture to the saucepan.

  4. Cook over low heat, stirring until it thickens.

Serve

  1. Pour into serving dishes and let cool 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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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 a smooth, rich body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the flavour of the infusion.
Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond flavour and body through the ground paste.
Bitter almonds
Add a concentrated, sharper almond aroma to the custard.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the mixture gets too hot, the proteins scramble and the custard turns grainy or curdled. Keep the heat low and keep stirring.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, milk, cinnamon, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, milk, cinnamon, 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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