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Dessert

Currant Custard

A custard made with currant juice, sugar, eggs, rich cream, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Currant Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Boil the currant juice for three minutes and remove any scum.

  2. Pour the boiling juice over the well-beaten eggs.

  3. Thicken the custard in a jug set in a pan of water.

Finish the custard

  1. Stir the custard until nearly cold.

  2. Gradually add the rich cream to the custard.

  3. Finally, stir in the strained lemon juice.

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

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Set the custard as they cook gently, giving it body and a smooth, thick texture.
Currant juice
Provides the main fruit flavour and liquid base of the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the tartness of the currant juice.
Rich cream
Adds fat that makes the custard silky and rich in mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and sharpens the sweetness.

The step that matters

Thicken the custard in a jug set in a pan of water. Eggs set when heated, and gentle, indirect heat from a water bath lets them thicken smoothly. Direct high heat would scramble them into lumps.

Swap the currant

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

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

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