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Dessert

Curd and Cream Mould

A custard-like dessert made with curd, eggs, nutmeg, lemon peel, brandy, currants, and sweetened cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon 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 ↓

Curd and Cream Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the curd

  1. In a pot, mix the curd and set it near the fire.

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs with grated nutmeg, lemon peel, and brandy.

  3. Add the egg mixture and currants to the curd and stir well.

Bake and serve

  1. Prepare your tins lined with puff pastry, notching the edges.

  2. Fill each tin with the curd mixture and bake for 20 minutes.

  3. For a variety, place the curd in a mould with holes and let it stand for 6 hours.

  4. Carefully turn it out onto a dish and pour over sweetened cream and nutmeg.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks bind the curd and give it a rich, set structure when baked.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and texture throughout the curd.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, moist finish when poured over the mould.
Puff paste
Forms a crisp, flaky case that holds the curd while it bakes.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, nutmeg, lemon, brandy, cream, 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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