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Dessert

Cold Custard

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Let it sit for 1-2 days.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, combine the milk with 1 teaspoon of the wine. Sweeten the milk and add your choice of vanilla, rose-water, or lemon.

  2. Warm the milk slightly, then stir in the wine. Pour the mixture into cups or glasses immediately.

  3. Allow it to set for a few minutes until it becomes a custard. 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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 curdles the milk, turning it into a set custard.
Milk
Forms the body of the custard as its proteins set into a soft curd.
Lisbon wine
Steeps with the rennet and adds sweetness and flavor to the finished custard.

The step that matters

Warming the milk. Rennet works best at a gentle warmth; milk that is too hot can weaken the enzyme, while milk that is too cold sets slowly or not at all. Warm it only slightly.

“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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