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Dessert

Soft Caramel Custard

A custard made with milk, sugar, eggs, and salt, cooked until thickened and served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Soft Caramel Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Put the milk on to boil, reserving a cupful.

  2. Beat the eggs and add the cold milk to them.

  3. Stir the sugar in a small frying pan until it becomes liquid and just begins to smoke.

Make the custard

  1. Stir the caramel into the boiling milk.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and cold milk to the mixture and stir constantly until it thickens.

Cool and serve

  1. Set away to cool.

  2. Serve in glasses.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

276Calories
14 gProtein
13 gFat
25 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and sets to a soft, creamy body when heated.
Sugar
Melts into caramel for flavour and colour, and sweetens the custard.
Eggs
Thicken the custard as their proteins set with gentle heat, giving it structure.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs into the hot milk. Egg proteins set around 160°F and can curdle if the mixture overheats or is not stirred constantly. Constant stirring keeps the custard smooth as it thickens.

“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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