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Dessert

Sponge Custard

A custard made with milk, egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, and topped with meringue over soaked sponge cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Sponge Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch together.

  3. Pour the boiling milk over the egg mixture while stirring.

  4. Return the mixture to the heat and stir until thickened.

  5. Let it cool and add vanilla to taste.

Assemble and top

  1. Soak the stale sponge cake slices in wine and line a pudding dish with them.

  2. Pour the custard over the sponge cake.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  4. Gradually add 1½ tablespoons of sugar and ½ teaspoon of vanilla to the egg whites.

  5. Spread the meringue over the custard and brown in the oven.

  6. 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.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + winetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together887 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set when heated with the milk.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the meringue topping and sets light when browned.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard by swelling in hot liquid, giving it a smooth body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the yolks set.
Sponge cake
Soaks up wine and custard to form a moist, tender base layer.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard until thickened. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated, so the custard should be stirred over gentle heat and kept moving until it thickens and coats a spoon.

“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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