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Dessert

Steamed Custard

A steamed custard made with egg yolks, milk, sugar, coconut, and frosted with beaten egg whites, sugar, and coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,648 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Steamed Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler until boiling.

  2. Add the sugar and beaten egg yolks, stirring well.

  3. Remove from heat when it begins to thicken.

  4. Cool and flavor as desired.

  5. Pour the mixture into custard cups.

  6. Place the cups in a steamer over boiling water.

  7. Steam until set and firm.

  8. Cool.

  9. Grate nutmeg over the top of each custard if desired.

Make the frosting and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites and gradually add sugar and coconut until stiff.

  2. Top each custard with the frosting 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. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + milktop 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 + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

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

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk and set the custard into a smooth, firm texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the egg proteins set into custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps give the frosting its body.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that forms the light frosting topping.

The step that matters

Remove from heat when it begins to thicken. Egg proteins set with heat, so overheating can curdle the custard and make it grainy. Pulling it off as it starts to thicken keeps it smooth.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

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