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Dessert

Cream Custard

A custard made with bread crumbs, cream, butter, egg yolks, and sugar, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard

  1. Grate the crumb of a penny loaf very fine.

  2. In a pot, combine the grated bread, cream, butter, and egg yolks.

  3. Add sugar to sweeten the mixture.

  4. Heat the mixture over the fire until it thickens.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the custard into shallow dishes.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 30 minutes.

  3. Grate loaf sugar over the custards before serving.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Penny loaf crumb
Bread crumb soaks up the cream and thickens the custard into a soft body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the custard a smooth, tender texture.
Egg yolks
Egg proteins set when heated, firming the custard as it thickens and bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture until it thickens. Egg yolks set when heated, but too much heat can curdle them into a grainy texture. Heat gently and stir until the custard just 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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