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Dessert

French Custards or Creams

A custard made from milk, egg yolks, cream, and sugar, baked in a water bath and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

French Custards or Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, gently boil the milk with sugar and salt for a few minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and briskly stir in the egg yolks.

  3. Butter a round deep dish and pour in the custard mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the dish in a pan of boiling water, ensuring the water does not touch the custard.

  2. Let it simmer for 1 to 1.5 hours until firm in the middle.

  3. Keep a few live embers on the lid to prevent steam from falling into the custard.

  4. Serve cold, garnished with chopped macaroons or ratafias around the edge.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Set the custard into a firm, sliceable texture as they cook gently.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the custard its body and creamy mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens its set slightly.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Keep the water from touching the custard and cook gently. Egg proteins set at moderate heat and curdle or turn grainy if overheated. A water bath with the water kept below the custard's level and a gentle simmer lets it firm evenly without weeping or cracking.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, cream, sugar, butter. 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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