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Frozen Caramel Custard

A frozen custard made with caramel, milk, tapioca, eggs, cream, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Frozen Caramel Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Stir 1 cup of granulated sugar in a saucepan over heat until it melts and caramelizes, then cool the caramel slightly.

  2. Carefully add the caramel to 1 quart of scalded milk using a long spoon.

  3. Add ¼ cup of quick cooking tapioca to the milk mixture and cook until the tapioca is transparent.

  4. Beat 4 egg yolks slightly, then mix ½ cup of sugar and ½ teaspoon of salt into the beaten yolks.

  5. Stir the egg mixture into the hot milk mixture for a few moments, then remove the mixture from heat.

Chill and freeze

  1. Pour the mixture into a freezer container and let it cool completely.

  2. Once cold, add 1 pint of cream and 1½ tablespoons of vanilla extract.

  3. Freeze the mixture.

  4. Pack the freezer with 3 parts ice to 1 part coarse sea salt.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set gently with heat.
Quick cooking tapioca
Thickens the milk mixture as its starch swells with heat, giving body to the custard.
Granulated sugar
Caramelized for flavor and added to the yolks for sweetness.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother, creamier texture after freezing.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the tapioca thickens and the yolks enrich.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture into the hot milk mixture. Adding egg yolks to very hot liquid too quickly can scramble them. Stirring steadily for a few moments while adding the mixture gently brings the custard up to thickness without 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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