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Dessert

Caramel Pudding

A sweet pudding made with caramel, milk, water, egg, cornstarch, and vanilla.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Cook the brown sugar in a saucepan until it turns to caramel.

  2. Add ½ cup water to the caramel and stir until dissolved.

Make the custard

  1. Moisten the cornstarch with a little cold milk.

  2. Scald the milk in a double boiler and add the moistened cornstarch.

  3. Cook briskly for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Add the caramel mixture and continue stirring.

  5. Add the well-beaten egg and cook for 1 more minute.

  6. Cool slightly, then add the vanilla and pour into a mold.

Serve

  1. Once cold, turn out and serve with whipped cream.

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. 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. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 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

Brown sugar
Caramelizes to give the pudding its deep, sweet, toffee-like flavor and color.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the pudding, providing body and creaminess as it thickens.
Egg
Adds richness and helps set the pudding as it cooks into the custard.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable pudding as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook the cornstarch mixture briskly while stirring constantly. Cornstarch must be heated to a full boil and stirred continuously, or it can scorch on the bottom or stay lumpy and fail to thicken evenly. Adding the beaten egg near the end and cooking only briefly keeps it from curdling.

“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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