Name: Custard Sauce
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; 2 eggs, beaten; 1 pint milk; Flavoring to taste; Brandy or wine (optional)

Why it works: Milk and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,738 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Custard Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

Heat the milk in a saucepan until boiling.
Gradually add the beaten eggs and sugar to the milk, stirring continuously.
Add your chosen flavoring.
Place the saucepan in a larger pan of boiling water and stir until the mixture begins to thicken.

Finish and serve

Remove from heat and gradually stir in the brandy or wine.
Keep warm in the pan of boiling water until ready to serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,738 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,340 recipes

Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and milk 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

Eggs: Thicken the custard as they cook, giving the sauce its body.
Milk: Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a pourable sauce.
Sugar: Sweetens the sauce and balances the richness of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Place the saucepan in a larger pan of boiling water and stir until the mixture begins to thicken.. Egg proteins set at around 160°F to 180°F, so gentle heat from a water bath with constant stirring thickens the custard smoothly. Overheating scrambles the eggs and curdles the sauce.

“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.