Skip to main content
Dessert

Egg Timbals

Egg Timbals are baked egg custard cakes made with milk, eggs, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Egg Timbals

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

  3. Add the milk, pepper, and salt, and mix until combined.

Bake

  1. Grease timbal molds well and fill them nearly to the top with the mixture.

  2. Place the molds in a pan of boiling water inside the oven.

  3. Bake for about 45 minutes.

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

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

  2. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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
Set the custard into a firm, sliceable texture as they cook.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, keeping the custard tender rather than dry.

The step that matters

Place the molds in a pan of boiling water. This water bath surrounds the molds with gentle, even heat. Egg custard that cooks too fast at high heat turns grainy, watery, or rubbery, so the water bath helps it set smoothly.

“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.

You might also like