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Dessert

Boiled Custards

A sweet custard made with cream, sugar, almonds, cinnamon, lemon rind, and egg yolks, chilled and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Boiled Custards

Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Boiled Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the cream in a saucepan over low heat with sugar, sweet almonds, bitter almonds, cinnamon, and lemon rind.

  2. When it begins to simmer, remove from heat and cool by pouring back and forth between two bowls until warm to the touch.

  3. Gradually stir in the egg yolks as the cream cools.

  4. Strain the mixture through thin muslin into a clean pan.

  5. Return to low heat and stir gently until it thickens but does not boil.

  6. Quickly pour into a large bowl and stir until slightly cooled.

  7. Add orange-flower water or rose-water if desired.

Chill and serve

  1. Pour into cups and refrigerate until cold.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides richness and body, giving the custard its smooth, fat-based texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving it a creamy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps balance the richness of the cream and yolks.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty flavour and aroma to the infused cream.

The step that matters

Thickening over low heat. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heating, but if the custard boils the proteins curdle and it turns grainy. Keep the heat low and stir steadily until it coats a spoon.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, almond, cinnamon, lemon, egg, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, almond, cinnamon, lemon, egg, milk. 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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