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Dessert

Custard

A simple custard made with milk, eggs, salt, sweetener, and flavouring, baked, steamed, or boiled.

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

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 custard

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add the milk, salt, sweetener, and flavouring, mixing well.

Cook

  1. Bake this mixture in a pie dish, steam it in a basin, or cook it in a jug placed in a saucepan of boiling water.

  2. For a savoury version, substitute salt, pepper, and parsley for the sweetener and flavouring, and replace some or all of the milk with good white stock.

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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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

Eggs
Set the custard by coagulating as they heat, giving it structure and a firm texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and moisture that sets gently into a soft, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Cooking gently in a water bath or steam. Egg proteins set at moderate heat, and high heat makes the custard curdle and turn grainy or watery. Cooking in boiling water or steam, or baking at a gentle temperature, keeps the heat even and the texture smooth.

“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.

More custard recipes

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