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Custard Filling

A thickened milk custard made with eggs, sugar, and corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Custard Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, mix the corn starch with a little cold milk.

  2. In another bowl, beat together the sugar, eggs, and the corn starch mixture.

  3. Heat the fresh milk until boiling, then gradually add it to the egg mixture while stirring.

  4. Return the mixture to the heat and cook until it thickens to a mush-like consistency.

Finish

  1. Flavor as desired and spread as needed.

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 + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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
Provide protein that sets and thickens the custard as it cooks.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, stable custard as it heats.
Fresh milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs and starch thicken into custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the set texture of the custard.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the egg mixture. Pouring hot milk in too fast can scramble the eggs. Adding it gradually while stirring warms the eggs evenly so the custard stays smooth.

“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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