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Custard Tart

A baked custard filling in a crust, topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Custard Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Beat the eggs in a bowl and mix in the caster sugar and sweet milk. Add flavoring to taste.

  3. Pour the mixture into a crust-lined dish.

Bake and top

  1. Bake until set.

  2. Whip the egg whites with additional sugar until soft peaks form.

  3. Spread the whipped egg whites over the custard.

  4. Return to the oven and bake until slightly browned.

  5. Let cool before serving.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Set the custard as they cook, giving it structure and body.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base and, with the eggs, gives the custard its creamy texture.
Caster sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the set custard.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar, they form a light meringue topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake the custard until just set. Egg proteins set with heat, so overbaking makes the custard grainy, weepy or rubbery. Pull it when the centre barely wobbles, since it keeps setting as it cools.

“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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