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Dessert

Marmalade Op Eggs

A custard-like dessert made with sugar, egg yolks, almonds, bread, cheese, milk, butter, salt, cayenne, eggs, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Marmalade Op Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sugar and yolk base

  1. Boil the sugar until thick.

  2. Skim the sugar well.

  3. Stir in the beaten egg yolks.

  4. Boil for 20 minutes.

  5. Pour into glasses or cups with a few bruised almonds.

  6. Let cool.

Make the cheese custard

  1. Crumb the bread.

  2. Mix the crumbed bread with the grated cheese in the milk.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Add the butter, salt, and cayenne.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

  6. Add the beaten eggs and a little cream.

  7. Pour the mixture into a deep silver or block-tin shape.

  8. Stir slightly.

  9. Bake for 1 hour.

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. Almond + walnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sugar mixture as they set, giving it a rich, firm body.
Eggs
Bind the cheese custard and help it set firm when baked.
White sugar
Sweetens the base and, boiled thick, gives the marmalade its body.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat, enriching the custard's texture.
Fresh milk
Provides moisture and softness to the cheese custard mixture.
Bread
Crumbed bread soaks up liquid, helping give the custard body.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs to the cooled mixture. Eggs set when heated, so adding them to a mixture that is still hot can scramble them. Letting the mixture cool first lets the eggs blend smoothly and set evenly in the oven.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Walnutthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, almond, bread, cheese, milk, 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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