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Caramel Custard

A baked custard with a caramel base made from milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Caramel 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 ↓

Caramel Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the caramel

  1. In a saucepan, combine 1 cup of sugar with a little water and cook until it turns dark brown and thick.

  2. Pour the caramel into a mold to cover the bottom.

  3. Let it harden, reserving 2-3 tablespoons for flavoring.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs, 5 teaspoons of sugar, and vanilla extract together.

  2. Add the milk, reserving about ½ cup.

  3. Mix in the reserved caramel for flavor.

  4. Heat the milk and caramel mixture in a saucepan until it is hot.

  5. Add the egg mixture.

Bake and check

  1. Pour everything into the mold.

  2. Bake in a water bath at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Insert a knife to check if it comes out clean.

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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

Eggs
Set the custard into a firm, sliceable structure as they cook and coagulate.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into a creamy, tender custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, when caramelized, gives the dark, bittersweet caramel flavor.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma that rounds out the sweetness of the custard.

The step that matters

Cook the caramel to dark brown. Sugar darkens and gains flavor as it caramelizes, but it turns bitter and burns if cooked too long. Stop when it is dark brown and thick, before it smokes.

“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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