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Dessert

Solid Custard

A thick custard made with milk, sugar, egg yolks, Iceland moss or isinglass, cinnamon, and almond flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Solid Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the moss or isinglass in the milk until dissolved.

  2. Add the sugar and cinnamon to the milk.

  3. Beat the egg yolks well and strain them.

  4. Mix the strained yolks with the milk.

  5. Set the mixture on the fire, stirring constantly until it thickens to custard consistency.

  6. Add almond flavoring.

Set and serve

  1. Cool.

  2. Pour into a mold.

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 + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set over heat.
Iceland moss or isinglass
Gelling agent that lets the custard set firm when cooled.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the milk and yolks.
New milk
Forms the liquid base that the other ingredients dissolve into and thicken.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard over the fire. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated, so stirring constantly over gentle heat keeps the custard smooth as it thickens.

“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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