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Dessert

Almond Custard

A custard made with milk, sugar, blanched almonds, egg yolks, and topped with beaten egg whites flavored with wine and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine the milk, sugar, and pounded almonds in a saucepan.

  2. Heat over medium until thickened like cream.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks.

  4. Pour the mixture into a deep dish.

Top and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, wine, and brandy to the beaten whites.

  3. Spread the egg white mixture over the custard.

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. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

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

  4. Almond + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,969 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form a light, airy meringue layer on top of the custard.
Blanched almonds
Provide the main flavour and body of the custard once pounded into the milk.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into the custard when heated.

The step that matters

Heating the milk mixture until thickened. Heat must be moderate and the mixture stirred, because egg proteins and starch-free thickening can scorch or curdle if overheated; stopping at a cream-like thickness keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Cocoafits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Peasfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, wine, brandy. 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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