Skip to main content
Dessert

Custards

A milk and egg yolk custard flavored with lemon peel, cinnamon, bitter almonds, brandy, and clarified with isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Custards

Why it works: Cinnamon and almond 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 ↓

Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Sweeten the milk and boil it with lemon peel and cinnamon.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and add them to the cooled milk.

  4. Stir in the cream and crushed bitter almonds mixed with brandy.

  5. Add isinglass boiled in the milk and strained.

Thicken and finish

  1. Heat the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened, but do not let it boil.

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. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + teatop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  4. Lemon + teatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 and add richness as they set gently with heat.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the egg yolks set into a smooth custard.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, softer texture and smoother mouthfeel.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that helps the custard firm up as it cools.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the custard boils, the proteins curdle and it turns grainy or watery. Stirring constantly over low heat spreads the heat evenly and prevents scorching on the bottom.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cinnamon, egg, tea, cream, almond, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

More custard recipes

Pie 313Baked 278Boiled 257Pudding 209Chocolate 198Lemon 178 See all 206 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes