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Dessert

Boiled Custards, or Custard Pudding

A custard made by simmering milk with aromatics, then adding cream, sugar, egg yolks, and seasoning, and served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Boiled Custards, or Custard Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the milk

  1. Simmer the milk, lemon peel, bay leaves, cinnamon, and coriander seeds gently for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the milk.

  3. Add the cream and powdered sugar.

  4. Let the mixture cool slightly.

Make the custard

  1. Mix in the beaten egg yolks and salt.

  2. Strain the custard through a fine sieve.

  3. Stir the custard over low heat until it begins to thicken, but do not let it boil.

  4. Remove from heat and continue stirring until almost cold.

Serve

  1. Pour the custard into cups or glasses.

  2. Grate nutmeg over each 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + coriandertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 custard sets from and carries the infused flavours.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, silkier mouthfeel and softer set.
Powdered loaf sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves smoothly into the warm liquid.

The step that matters

Stir the custard over low heat. Egg yolks begin to thicken around 70°C and curdle if overheated, so the custard must be stirred gently over low heat and kept below boiling to stay smooth.

Swap the coriander

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lemon, cinnamon, cream, sugar, egg, nutmeg. 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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