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Dessert

Cornfllour Custard

A custard made with milk, egg, cornflour, sugar, and flavouring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg 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 ↓

Cornfllour Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Pour the milk into a saucepan and heat until nearly boiling.

  2. Mix the cornflour with a spoonful of cold milk.

Thicken and finish

  1. Stir the cornflour mixture into the hot milk and continue stirring until it boils.

  2. Let it boil for 2-3 minutes, then remove from heat.

  3. Beat in the yolk of the egg and flavouring.

  4. Return to the heat and bring to boiling point; it is ready to use.

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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  2. Milk + sugartop 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).

Milk and sugar 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

Cornflour
Starch swells when heated in liquid, thickening the custard as it boils.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into a smooth custard.
Egg
Yolk adds richness and extra body, helping the custard set as it cools.

The step that matters

Stir the cornflour mixture into the hot milk until it boils. Cornflour mixed with cold milk first disperses evenly, and stirring while it heats prevents lumps. Boiling fully swells the starch granules so the custard thickens and loses its raw starchy taste.

“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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