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Dessert

Boiled Custard

A sweet custard made with milk, cream, eggs, almonds, spices, and brandy, served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Boil the milk with lemon peel, coriander, cinnamon, and pounded almonds for 5 minutes in a saucepan.

  2. Mix the boiled milk with cream, egg yolks, and beaten egg whites.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Cook and finish

  1. Stir the mixture over low heat until it begins to thicken.

  2. Remove from heat and continue stirring until nearly cold.

  3. Add brandy and pour into cups or glasses.

  4. Grate nutmeg over the top 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. Lemon + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

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

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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 over low heat, giving it richness.
Egg whites
Add lightness and body to the custard as they set with the heat.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and a silkier mouthfeel.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a pourable custard.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the cream and yolks.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture over low heat until it begins to thicken. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures, so high heat or lack of stirring can curdle the custard into grainy lumps. Gentle heat and constant stirring keep it smooth.

Swap the coriander

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lemon, cinnamon, almond, sugar, cream, egg. 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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