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Dessert

French Custard

A custard made from milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon, layered with steamed egg whites and garnished with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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French Custard

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 ↓

French Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Preheat a pan or farina kettle over low heat.

  2. Separate the eggs, beating the yolks until thick.

  3. Add the milk, vanilla, and sugar to the yolks, mixing well.

  4. Pour the mixture into the pan and stir constantly until it thickens into custard.

Prepare the egg whites

  1. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and dry.

  2. Prepare a pan of boiling water and place the whisked egg whites on top to steam cook them.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a serving dish, layer the custard and egg whites alternately.

  2. Grate a little nutmeg over each layer of custard and add a teaspoon of wine.

  3. Reserve some egg whites for the top layer, then grate nutmeg over it.

  4. Serve cold.

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.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Yolks thicken the custard and whites, whipped stiff, form the light layers.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which sets as it thickens with heat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Stir the custard constantly over low heat. Egg proteins thicken the mixture gently, but if it gets too hot or sits unstirred, the eggs can scramble and turn grainy instead of 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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