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Dessert

Soft Custard

A custard made with milk, cornstarch, sugar, eggs, and flavored with vanilla or lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Soft Custard

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 ↓

Soft Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, mix cornstarch with 3 tablespoons of the measured milk.

  2. Pour the remaining milk into a double boiler and heat on the hottest part of the fire.

  3. When the milk is hot, stir in the cornstarch mixture and cook for 12 minutes, stirring every 3 minutes.

  4. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the sugar.

  5. After 12 minutes, pour the cornstarch mixture over the eggs and sugar, stirring rapidly.

  6. Return the mixture to the double boiler and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Pour the custard over the beaten egg whites and mix thoroughly.

  3. Once cooled, flavor the custard with vanilla or lemon extract and serve in a glass dish.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sugar + eggtop 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 that the starch and eggs thicken into a custard.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the custard its body.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and help set the custard; beaten whites add lightness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Adding the cornstarch mixture to the eggs. Stirring rapidly while pouring the hot cornstarch mixture over the eggs blends them gradually, so the yolks warm without scrambling. The cornstarch must then be cooked long enough to thicken fully.

“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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