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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 cooling before serving.

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

Make the custard base

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

  2. Strain the milk and add cream and powdered sugar.

  3. Let the mixture cool slightly, then mix in the beaten egg yolks and salt.

  4. Strain the custard through a fine sieve.

Cook and serve

  1. Stir the custard over low heat until it thickens, but do not let it boil.

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

  3. Pour the custard into cups or glasses and grate nutmeg on top.

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, producing a softer, silkier texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the egg yolks set into custard.
Powdered loaf sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves easily into the warm milk and cream.
Lemon peel
Infuses the milk with bright citrus aroma.

The step that matters

Stir the custard over low heat without boiling. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the custard boils, the proteins curdle and it turns grainy and watery instead of 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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