Skip to main content
Dessert

To Mull Milk

A spiced custard made by mulling milk with cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, and egg yolks.

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

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 ↓

To Mull Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk with cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar for 5 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool.

  3. Beat the egg yolks with a little cold cream.

  4. Gradually pour the milk into the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  5. Return the mixture to the pan and stir over low heat until it thickens, but do not boil.

Serve

  1. Pour from one jug to another to serve.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 that the egg yolks thicken into a custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk as they set gently, giving the drink body and richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the spices and the richness of the yolks.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the milk.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note to the milk.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the egg yolk mixture.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat without boiling. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if the mixture gets too hot they scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth custard.

“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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes