Why it works: Cinnamon and laurel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 691 recipes. Both carry cinnamyl acetate, which smells sweet aromatic, cinnamon. The science ↓
Custard Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Boil the milk with the cinnamon, lemon peel, laurel leaves, and bruised almonds.
Strain the mixture and add it to the cream.
Stir in the well-beaten egg yolks and sweeten with pounded loaf sugar.
Pour the mixture into a saucepan and stir constantly until it thickens, before it boils.
Cool and serve
Pour into a deep dish and stir occasionally until cold.
Serve in a glass dish or custard cups.
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.
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Cinnamon + laureltop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together691 recipes
Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).
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Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Lemon + laureltop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,239 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 as they set gently with heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
- Cream
- Provides fat and richness, giving the custard a smooth, velvety texture.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the cream and yolks thicken into custard.
- Pounded loaf sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream and yolks.
The step that matters
Thickening the custard without boiling. Egg yolks set gently at around custard temperatures, but if the mixture boils the proteins curdle and turn grainy. Stirring constantly and stopping as it thickens keeps it smooth.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cinnamon, laurel, cream, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Peachfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cinnamon, laurel, cream, egg, sugar. 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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