Skip to main content
Dessert

Custard, Boiled

A sweet custard made by simmering milk with flavorings, sugar, egg yolks, and thick cream until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Custard, Boiled

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Custard, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rinse a saucepan with cold water to prevent the milk from sticking.

  2. Add the milk and your chosen flavoring to the saucepan and simmer gently until flavored.

  3. Stir in the sugar until dissolved.

  4. Strain the mixture over the egg yolks, stirring continuously.

Make the custard

  1. Return the mixture to the saucepan and stir by the side of the fire until it thickens.

  2. If inexperienced, pour the mixture into a jug or double saucepan and place it in a saucepan of boiling water, stirring until it coats the spoon.

  3. Add the cream and stir for 2 to 3 minutes to cook the cream.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 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).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the egg yolks thicken into a smooth custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set gently with heat, giving it body and richness.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves fully into the warm milk.
Thick cream
Adds fat for a richer, smoother texture and a fuller mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard over gentle heat. Egg yolks set at about 70 to 80°C and can scramble if the mixture gets too hot. Stir constantly and keep the heat low, so the custard thickens smoothly and coats the spoon.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, vanilla, cream):

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, vanilla, cream. 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.

More boiled custard recipes

Pudding 12Rich 6 See all 257 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes