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Dessert

Custard

Custard made with cream, eggs, spices, and sherry or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Custard

Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Simmer cream with nutmeg, cloves, mace, and laurel leaves for a while.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Gradually add beaten eggs, egg whites, sherry or brandy, salt, and sugar, and mix thoroughly.

  4. Pour into custard cups.

Finish and serve

  1. Lightly grate nutmeg over the top.

  2. Let it stand for a few hours 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.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + laureltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Nutmeg + laureltop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together872 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Coagulate on gentle heating to set the custard into a soft, sliceable body.
Egg whites
Add extra protein to help the custard set firmly and hold its shape.
Cream
Provides fat and moisture, giving the custard a rich, smooth texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream and eggs.

The step that matters

Pour into custard cups and bake gently. Egg proteins set at moderate heat; the record gives no oven method, so the cook should judge doneness carefully. Strained, well-mixed custard sets more evenly and avoids a grainy or watery texture.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, nutmeg, clove, laurel, egg, sherry, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, nutmeg, clove, laurel, egg, sherry, sugar. 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 custard recipes

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