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Dessert

Custard

A sweet custard made with egg yolks, milk, sugar, brandy, and vanilla or lemon flavoring, served with grated nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Custard

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix the yolks of 4 eggs and the white of 1 egg with a wooden spoon.

  2. Stir in the milk.

  3. Strain the mixture into a saucepan or jug.

  4. Add the sugar.

  5. Place the jug in a saucepan of boiling water.

  6. Stir the custard over the heat until it thickens, ensuring it does not boil.

  7. Remove from heat.

  8. Stir in the brandy and flavoring.

Serve

  1. Pour the cooled custard into custard glasses.

  2. Top with grated nutmeg.

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.

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.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vanilla + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Brandy + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich texture.
Egg white
Adds protein that helps the custard set and gives it a lighter body.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a smooth custard.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds body to its flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring over the heat without boiling. Egg proteins thicken gently as they warm; if the custard boils, they scramble and turn grainy, so it must stay below boiling while it thickens.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, brandy, sugar, vanilla, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

More custard recipes

Pie 313Baked 278Boiled 257Pudding 209Chocolate 198Lemon 178 See all 206 →

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