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Dessert

Cold Custard

A chilled custard made with rennet, wine, milk, sugar, and flavorings.

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

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 ↓

Cold Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rennet

  1. Wash the rennet well, cut it into pieces, and place it in a decanter with the Lisbon wine.

  2. Let it sit for 1-2 days.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, combine the milk with the teaspoon of wine.

  2. Sweeten the milk and add your choice of vanilla, rose-water, or lemon.

  3. Warm the milk slightly.

  4. Stir in the wine mixture.

  5. Pour the mixture immediately into cups or glasses.

  6. It will set into custard within a few minutes.

  7. Serve with sugar and cream if desired.

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. 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. Wine + vanillatop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together887 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Wine + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (fenugreek, curry).

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

Calf's rennet
Contains the enzyme that coagulates the milk, turning it into a set custard.
Milk
Forms the body of the custard, which sets into a soft curd when coagulated.
Lisbon wine
Steeps with the rennet to extract its enzyme into the liquid before it is used.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture immediately into cups or glasses. Rennet begins setting the milk as soon as it is mixed in, so delay can leave the custard unable to be poured into individual cups before it firms.

“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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