Why it works: Cinnamon and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 625 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓
Custards
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the milk with lemon peel and cinnamon until it tastes of the seasoning.
In a separate bowl, mix the cream and beaten egg yolks.
Sweeten the milk to taste, then pour it into the cream mixture and stir well.
Simmer the custard until it thickens, stirring continuously in one direction; do not let it boil.
Add the peach water and brandy or ratafia for flavor.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Cinnamon + peachtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together625 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together781 recipes
Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).
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 with gentle heat, giving it a rich body.
- Cream
- Adds fat and richness, giving the custard a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the yolks thicken into a pourable custard.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard to taste.
The step that matters
Simmer the custard until it thickens, without boiling. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heating, and when they get too hot they curdle and turn grainy. Stirring constantly in one direction and keeping the heat low helps the custard thicken evenly and stay smooth.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cinnamon, cream, egg, sugar, peach, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cinnamon, cream, egg, sugar, peach, 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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