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 ↓
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.
Prepare the custard base
Heat 1 quart of milk in a farina boiler.
Beat the yolks of 5 eggs until light, then stir them into 1 cup of cold milk.
Add the beaten egg whites and partially sweeten the mixture.
Burn 3 tablespoons of brown sugar in a pie pan until brown, stirring constantly.
Stir the burnt sugar into the boiling milk.
Gradually pour the hot milk into the cold milk and egg mixture.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into custard cups placed in a pan half full of water.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set.
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.
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Yolks and whites set the custard into a tender, sliceable structure as they cook.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a smooth, creamy custard.
- Brown sugar
- Burnt into the milk to add caramel flavor and color, and sweetens the custard.
The step that matters
Gradually pour the hot milk into the cold milk and egg mixture.. Adding hot milk slowly tempers the eggs so they warm gently instead of scrambling. Pouring too fast can curdle the custard and leave it grainy.
“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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