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Dessert

A Very Rich Custard

A rich custard made with milk or cream, cinnamon, sugar, spices, egg yolks, and topped with whipped egg whites and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Very Rich Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk or cream with the cinnamon pieces.

  2. Strain the mixture and let it cool.

  3. Gradually stir in the sugar and spices.

  4. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into cups and place them in a baking dish filled with water.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.

  3. Grate nutmeg on top of each custard.

  4. Top with beaten egg whites mixed with powdered sugar and essence of lemon.

  5. If desired, add a spot of red nonpareils in the center.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Egg yolks thicken the custard as they set, giving it a smooth, sliceable body.
Egg whites
Whipped whites form a light, airy topping that contrasts with the dense custard below.
Milk or cream
Provides the liquid base and richness that the eggs set into a creamy custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the set texture of the custard.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath until just set. Eggs set through gentle heat; a slow oven with the cups in water keeps the custard from overheating, which would make it grainy, weepy or cracked. Remove it once the centre barely wobbles, as it keeps setting as it cools.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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