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Dessert

Egg Custard

A small custard made from egg yolks, milk, and salt, baked or steamed, then chilled and cut into shapes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Egg Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks slightly, then add the salt and milk.

  2. Pour the mixture into a small, buttered mold and oven-poach or steam until firm.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill the custard.

  2. Turn it out, cut into fancy shapes, and serve in soup.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Provide the protein that sets the mixture into a firm custard when gently heated.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the set custard tender rather than rubbery.

The step that matters

Oven-poach or steam until firm. Egg proteins set at gentle heat, and overheating makes the custard grainy, weepy, or rubbery. Cook slowly and stop as soon as it is just firm.

“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.

More egg custard recipes

Baked 8Pie 5Pudding 5Steamed 5Turkey 4Poached 3 See all 32 →

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