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Dessert

Cup Custard

A custard made with milk, cream, egg yolks, sugar, lemon rind, and nutmeg, served chilled in cups.

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

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cup Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Simmer the lemon rind in the milk and cream for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and gradually add the egg yolks.

  3. Pour into a saucepan and stir over gentle heat until it thickens, ensuring it does not boil.

Cool and serve

  1. Pour into a large jug and keep stirring until cooled.

  2. Fill cups with the custard, grate a little nutmeg over the top, and serve 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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 on gentle heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, carrying the flavour and setting with the eggs.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, silkier texture in the finished custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the dairy and yolks.

The step that matters

Stir over gentle heat without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set, but high heat or boiling can curdle them into a grainy texture. Gentle, constant stirring keeps the custard smooth and lets it thicken evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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