Skip to main content
Dessert

Cup Custards

A sweet custard made from milk, eggs, sugar, and salt, flavored and steamed in cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cup Custards

Why it works: Lemon and rose are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,174 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cup Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the sugar and salt to the milk.

  3. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  4. Pour the heated milk over the eggs.

  5. Strain the mixture into a bowl.

  6. Divide the custard into three parts and flavor each part accordingly.

Steam and set

  1. Pour the custard into custard cups.

  2. Steam the cups over gently boiling water until the custards are firm.

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.

  1. Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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
Coagulate when heated, setting the custard into a firm, sliceable texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and moisture that gives the custard its smooth, creamy body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to the custard's smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Steam the cups over gently boiling water until the custards are firm. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures, and high heat or vigorous boiling can make the custard curdle, weep or turn grainy. Gentle steam heat keeps it smooth and evenly set.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

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

More custard cups recipes

Baked 7Vanilla 4Apple 3 See all 19 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes