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Dessert

Almond Custard Pie

A baked pie with a custard made from butter, sugar, eggs, brandy, wine, rose water, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Custard Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Whisk the eggs until thick, then gradually add to the butter mixture.

  3. Stir in the pounded almonds, brandy, wine, and rose water, adding half of each at a time.

  4. Let the mixture sit in a cool place for a short time.

Bake and finish

  1. Line your pie plates with puff pastry, rolling it thinner in the center than at the edges.

  2. Fill the pastry with the custard mixture and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Once baked and cooled, sift white sugar over the top.

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. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  2. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  3. Rose + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Brandy + rosetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together560 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the custard a light, rich body.
Eggs
Thicken and set the custard as they cook, giving it structure.
Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the filling.
Bitter almonds
Add a concentrated almond aroma and depth of flavor to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps create a light, creamed texture with the butter.

The step that matters

Baking the filled pie in a hot oven. Eggs must cook enough to set the custard without overbaking, which can make it curdle or weep. Watching for a set center helps the filling stay 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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