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Dessert

Baked Custard

A baked custard flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, almonds, port, and layered with various fruit jams, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard

  1. Scald the cream in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 1 hour until it thickens.

  2. Beat in the egg yolks, sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground almonds, and port until well mixed.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a deep dish with a thin layer of puff paste and spread the jams evenly on top.

  2. Pour the custard mixture over the jams and bake in a hot oven until it turns pale yellow.

Top and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites with the same weight of cream and a dash of lemon juice until stiff.

  2. Pile the whipped mixture on top of the custard just 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Cherry + peartop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  4. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + cherrytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together672 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the custard as they set, giving it a rich, sliceable body.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, so the custard turns smooth and silky when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they make the light topping that holds its shape.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilise the egg proteins as they set.
Jams
Add fruity sweetness and acidity under the custard, flavouring the base.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff without over-whipping, since overbeaten foam turns grainy and collapses. A trace of acid such as lemon juice helps the foam hold its volume.

Swap the pear

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, almond, cherry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, almond, cherry. 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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