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Dessert

Almond Custard Cream

A custard made from sweet and bitter almonds, milk, egg yolks, and whipped cream, finished with crushed ratafias.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Almond Custard Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch and skin the sweet and bitter almonds.

  2. Pound the almonds with enough sugar to sweeten the milk.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil, then add the almond mixture and cover.

  2. Let it infuse for 10 minutes.

  3. Pour the infusion over the egg yolks, stirring well.

  4. Heat the mixture over low heat until thickened, then strain into a bowl.

  5. Place the bowl on ice or in cold water, stirring until cold.

Finish and serve

  1. Fold in the whipped cream and fill cups.

  2. Sprinkle crushed ratafias on 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond flavor and body of the cream once pounded and infused into the milk.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the almond flavor is infused into and then thickened.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich, smooth texture.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when folded in as whipped cream.

The step that matters

Heating the custard over low heat. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, and high heat can curdle them into a grainy texture. Stirring constantly and straining afterward keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

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