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Dessert

Boiled Almond Custards

A custard made by boiling cream and milk with almonds, eggs, and spices, then cooling and serving with nutmeg.

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 Almond Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Combine bay leaves, cinnamon, cream, and milk in a clean saucepan.

  2. Heat over low until boiling.

  3. Grate the bitter and sweet almonds in a basin.

  4. Break the eggs and yolks into a teacup, checking for quality.

  5. Add the eggs and yolks to the basin.

  6. Mix in enough powdered loaf sugar to sweeten to your taste. Whisk well.

Make the custard

  1. Once the milk boils, remove from heat for 1-2 minutes.

  2. Pour the milk into the almond mixture while whisking.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve back into the saucepan.

  4. Return the mixture to low heat. Stir until it begins to thicken, ensuring it does not boil.

  5. Remove the mixture from heat. Continue stirring until cool to prevent curdling.

  6. Once cool, pour into glasses or cups. 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. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook gently, giving it body and structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and smoothness, and help the custard thicken.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the custard a silky texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that thickens into the custard.
Sweet almonds
Contribute nutty flavour and body to the custard.
Bitter almonds
Add a deeper, more pronounced almond aroma.

The step that matters

Thickening over low heat. Egg proteins set gently around 70 to 80°C, so heat must stay low and the mixture must not boil. Boiling can scramble the eggs and curdle the custard, so keep stirring as it thickens and while it cools.

“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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