Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Custards
Ingredients
Directions
Take 2 tablespoons of the milk or cream and mix it well with the packet of custard powder in a bowl.
Boil the remaining milk or cream.
Once boiling, gradually add the custard mixture while stirring continuously until thickened.
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.
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 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
- Milk or cream
- Forms the liquid base that the custard powder thickens into a smooth custard.
- Custard powder
- Starch that swells when heated in liquid, thickening the custard into a set texture.
- Powdered loaf sugar
- Adds sweetness to the custard.
The step that matters
Adding the custard mixture to the boiling milk. Custard powder is a starch that must be stirred constantly as it meets the hot liquid. Stopping or adding it too fast can cause lumps, since starch granules clump before they disperse evenly and thicken.
“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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