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Dessert

Very Good Old-fashioned Boiled Custard

A custard made by infusing lemon rind in milk, adding sugar and egg yolks, then cooking over simmering water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Very Good Old-fashioned Boiled Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the milk

  1. Infuse the lemon rind in 1½ cups of new milk for 30 minutes.

  2. Simmer the milk for a few minutes, then add 4½ ounces of sugar.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of 14 eggs and mix with ½ cup of new milk.

  2. Stir the boiling milk quickly into the egg mixture, then remove the lemon peel.

  3. Pour the custard into a deep jug and place it over boiling water.

  4. Stir gently and continuously until it thickens, then stir more quickly until it nearly boils.

  5. Remove from heat immediately to prevent curdling.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour into a bowl and stir until nearly cold.

  2. Gradually add ⅓ cup of brandy and 2 ounces of blanched almonds, if desired.

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. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Brandy + almondtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,969 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thickens the custard as they set with gentle heat, and adds richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the yolks thicken into a smooth custard.
White sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the yolks.
Lemon rind
Adds bright citrus aroma as it infuses into the warm milk.

The step that matters

Stir the custard over boiling water and remove from heat before it boils. Egg yolks thicken from gentle heat, but if they get too hot they scramble and curdle. Stirring steadily and pulling the pan off heat as it nears boiling keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the almond

The recipe marks almond as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, lemon, sugar, egg, brandy):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Pistachiofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lemon, sugar, egg, brandy. 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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