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Custard Sauce

A sweet sauce made by boiling milk, adding eggs and sugar, thickening in a water bath, optionally flavored with brandy or wine.

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

Why it works: Milk and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,738 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Custard Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. Gradually add the beaten eggs and sugar to the boiling milk.

  3. Stir in the flavoring.

  4. Place the mixture in a pan of boiling water.

  5. Stir until it begins to thicken.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and gradually stir in the brandy or wine.

  2. Keep warm in a pan of boiling water until ready to serve.

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 + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Egg proteins set as they heat, thickening the milk into a smooth custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds richness and body to the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the savoury, eggy flavour of the custard.

The step that matters

Stir until it begins to thicken. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the sauce thickens quickly near the end. If it gets too hot or stays too long, the eggs can curdle or scramble. Stir steadily and stop once it begins to thicken.

“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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