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Dessert

Naples Curd

A sweet custard made from milk, cinnamon, eggs, wine, butter, orange flower water, and sugar, chilled in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,437 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Naples Curd

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curd

  1. In a pot, heat 1 quart of new milk with 1 stick of cinnamon until boiling.

  2. Remove the cinnamon and stir in 8 well-beaten eggs and 1 tablespoon of white wine.

  3. Once it boils again, strain the mixture through a sieve.

Sweeten and chill

  1. In a basin, beat the curd with ½ ounce of butter, 2 tablespoons of orange-flower water, and enough pounded sugar to sweeten.

  2. Transfer the mixture into a mold and refrigerate for 2 hours before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve with a mixture of white wine, sugar, and cream poured around the curd or in a sauce-tureen.

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. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Coagulate on heating to set the milk into a soft, sliceable curd.
Milk
Forms the body of the curd as its proteins set when heated and strained.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the curd richer and smoother in texture.
Orange-flower water
Contributes a floral aroma that flavours the curd.
White wine
Adds a light acidity and aroma to the curd mixture.

The step that matters

Straining after the second boil. Eggs set quickly when heated, so the mixture must be brought to a boil gently and strained to separate the curds and remove any cooked egg lumps, leaving a smooth texture.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cinnamon, egg, white wine, butter, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cinnamon, egg, white wine, butter, 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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