Skip to main content
Dessert

Caramel Ice Cream

Caramel ice cream made by cooking sugar to caramel, dissolving in hot water, then mixing with cream, sugar, egg and freezing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Norton, Caroline Trask · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Caramel Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Cook three-fourths of a cup of sugar to a caramel and dissolve with one-half cup of hot water.

  2. Add the water gradually and let remain on the back of the stove until the caramel dissolves.

Make the base and freeze

  1. When cool, add it to one quart of cream, one-half cup of sugar and one beaten egg.

  2. Freeze.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

178Calories
7 gProtein
11 gFat
14 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Norton, Caroline Trask. 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. See the original page.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Cream
Provides fat and richness, giving the frozen ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, and the caramelized portion adds a toasty, slightly bitter depth of flavor.
Egg
Adds richness and helps emulsify the base, contributing to a smooth, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the caramel and adding the water. Sugar caramelizes at high heat, and overcooked caramel turns bitter. Hot caramel can seize or splatter when water is added, so the water should go in gradually and the caramel should be allowed to dissolve fully before it is cooled and mixed into the cream.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes