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Dessert

Custard Mould

A custard set in a mould, made with eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, bay leaf, gelatin, and served chilled with wine sauce or fruit syrup.

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

Custard Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the flavoring in the milk and infuse for about 20 minutes.

  2. Beat the eggs lightly, then pour the hot (not boiling) milk over them while stirring.

  3. Add the sugar and return the mixture to the saucepan.

  4. Cook gently by the side of the fire until the eggs thicken, but do not let it boil.

  5. Pour the mixture over the gelatine in a basin and stir until dissolved.

Set and serve

  1. Turn into a rinsed mould or dariole moulds and refrigerate until firm.

  2. When firm, turn out and serve with wine sauce or fruit syrup.

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. 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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 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

Eggs
Thicken the custard as they gently cook, giving it body and a set structure.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid custard so it holds its shape when turned out of the mould.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken and the gelatine sets.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds softness to its texture.
Vanilla pod
Infuses the milk with aroma as the base flavoring.

The step that matters

Cook gently without boiling. Egg proteins thicken the custard when heated slowly, but boiling makes them curdle and turn grainy, so the custard must stay below a simmer.

“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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