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.
Make the caramel
Heat 2 tablespoons of crushed sugar in a tin pan on the stove until it begins to brown.
Stir constantly until the sugar becomes a thick, black syrup.
Pour the syrup into 1 quart of scalding milk.
Make the custard and bake
Add 6 ounces of white sugar and the yolks of 6 eggs.
Beat the mixture well and pour it into cups.
Place the cups in a pan of hot water and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.
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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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and milk 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard as they set during baking, giving it a smooth, sliceable structure.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the caramel flavour through the dish.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps balance the bitter notes of the caramel.
- Crushed sugar
- Browns in the pan to form the caramel syrup that flavours the milk.
The step that matters
Stirring the sugar until it becomes syrup. Sugar browns unevenly and can scorch or turn bitter if it is left still over heat. Constant stirring keeps the melting even, so the caramel tastes rich rather than burnt.
“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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