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Dessert

Fairy Custard

A custard made with milk, eggs, cornstarch, sugar, vanilla, and preserved strawberries, finished with folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Fairy Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a farina kettle, bring the milk to a boil with the vanilla extract.

  2. Drop the beaten egg whites into the boiling milk with a tablespoon and scald them.

  3. Remove the scalded egg whites with a skimmer and set aside on a flat dish.

  4. Add the 6 beaten yolks, cornstarch, and sugar to the boiling milk, stirring until it thickens to a cream-like consistency.

  5. Allow the mixture to cool.

Prepare the float and serve

  1. Beat the whites of 3 eggs until stiff peaks form.

  2. Beat the remaining 3 egg whites to stiff peaks and fold in the preserved strawberries.

  3. In individual saucers, layer the custard, then the strawberry float, and top with the scalded egg whites.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, setting gently when heated with the yolks.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they cook, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks and scalded, they form light, airy floating puffs.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard by swelling with heat, stabilising it as it cools.
Preserved strawberries
Add fruit flavour and sweetness to the strawberry float layer.

The step that matters

Scalding the egg whites. Egg whites must be simmered only briefly in the milk until just set. Overcooking makes them rubbery and can cloud the milk, while undercooking leaves them soft and fragile.

“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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