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Dessert

Baked Custard

A custard baked in a pie dish with lemon rind, sugar, eggs, milk, butter, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a sharp oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Heat the milk with the lemon rind and sugar until hot, but do not boil.

  2. Whisk the eggs in a bowl.

  3. Butter a pie dish.

Make the custard

  1. Pour the hot milk mixture over the eggs while stirring continuously.

  2. Strain the custard into the pie dish.

  3. Sprinkle grated nutmeg on top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 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
Set the custard into a sliceable structure as they cook.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the eggs set in, giving the custard its body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot milk over the eggs while stirring. Adding hot liquid to eggs too quickly, without constant stirring, can scramble them. Stirring continuously spreads the heat evenly so the eggs thicken smoothly into a custard.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, lemon, sugar, egg, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lemon, sugar, egg, butter. 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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