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Dessert

Almond Custard Cream

A custard made with sweet and bitter almonds, milk, egg yolks, and whipped cream, topped with crushed ratafias.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Custard Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch and skin the sweet and bitter almonds.

  2. Pound the almonds with enough sugar to sweeten the milk.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil, then add the almond mixture.

  2. Cover and let infuse for 10 minutes.

  3. In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks, then gradually pour in the almond infusion while stirring.

  4. Heat the mixture over low heat until it thickens, then strain through a fine sieve into a bowl.

  5. Place the bowl in ice or cold water, stirring until completely cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Fold in the whipped cream, then fill cups with the mixture.

  2. Sprinkle crushed ratafias on top 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond flavour and body of the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the almond flavour infuses into.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they gently set with heat.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a light, silky texture when folded in.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard over low heat. Egg yolks set at low temperatures; if the mixture gets too hot or is heated too quickly, it can curdle or turn grainy instead of thickening smoothly.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

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

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