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Dessert

A Finer Baked Custard

A custard made with milk, sugar, lemon zest, eggs, cream, and brandy, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

A Finer Baked Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Gently boil the milk with the sugar, salt, and lemon zest in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and egg whites in a bowl until well combined.

  3. Strain the milk mixture and add it to the eggs.

  4. Stir in the cream.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

  6. Flavor the mixture with brandy or ratafia.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the custard into cups.

  2. Place the cups in a baking dish filled with water.

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

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  3. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set when gently heated.
Egg whites
Add structure and lightness to the custard, helping it set firm.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs set into a smooth custard.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, silkier texture.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens its set.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath at a slow oven temperature. Eggs set into a smooth custard only with gentle heat. A water bath keeps the cups from overheating, which would cause curdling, cracks, or a grainy texture. Bake only until just set.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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