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Dessert

Cornflour Meringue

A custard made with milk, cornflour, eggs, sugar, and topped with meringue and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cornflour Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk to boiling.

  2. Mix the cornflour with a little cold milk, then pour the boiling milk over the mixture.

  3. Boil for 15 minutes, stirring constantly, then remove from heat.

  4. Gradually add the beaten yolks of the eggs mixed with sugar and flavoring.

  5. Pour into a buttered pudding dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 15 minutes, until the custard begins to set.

  2. Top with a meringue made from the whipped egg whites, gradually adding jelly or jam to the meringue.

  3. Return to the oven to brown slightly.

  4. Serve hot.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and gives it a soft, creamy body.
Cornflour
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the custard a smooth, sliceable structure.
Eggs
Yolks thicken and enrich the custard, while whites whip into a meringue that sets and browns.
Pounded white sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilize the whipped egg white meringue.

The step that matters

Boil the cornflour mixture for 15 minutes while stirring constantly. Cornflour only thickens fully when its starch granules swell and gelatinize in boiling liquid. Stirring prevents scorching and lumps, and sustained boiling ensures the custard reaches full thickness before the eggs are added.

“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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