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Caramel Icing

A sweet glaze made by caramelizing sugar and combining it with milk and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Caramel Icing

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Caramel Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Scorch ½ cup granulated sugar in a pan until it turns a deep amber color.

Make the icing

  1. In another pan, combine 2 cups granulated sugar, ½ cup milk, and 1 tablespoon butter.

  2. Cook the mixture over medium heat until it thickens.

  3. Add the scorched sugar to the thickened mixture.

  4. Beat until cool.

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.

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Granulated sugar
Provides sweetness and body, and the scorched portion adds deep caramel flavor and color.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, letting the sugar cook into a smooth, spreadable mixture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, smoother texture in the finished icing.

The step that matters

Scorching the sugar. Sugar darkens quickly, and once it passes deep amber it turns bitter and acrid. Stop at the right color, because burnt sugar will spoil the flavor of the whole icing.

“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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