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Dessert

Caramel Custard

A custard made with milk, brown sugar, caramelized sugar syrup, egg yolks, egg whites, flour, and topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Caramel Custard

Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel and heat the milk

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler until scalding hot.

  2. Brown the brown sugar in a saucepan until it caramelizes slightly.

  3. Pour the boiling water over the caramelized sugar.

  4. Let the mixture boil.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar, flour, and beaten egg whites.

  2. Gradually add the caramel syrup to the egg mixture.

  3. Slowly stir the egg mixture into the hot milk until it thickens.

Cool and serve

  1. Let the custard cool completely.

  2. Serve in glasses topped with whipped cream.

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

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Egg proteins set and thicken the milk into a custard as they heat.
Egg whites
Whipped whites add structure and a lighter, airier texture to the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a smooth custard.
Flour
Starch helps stabilize the custard and keeps it from splitting or thinning.
Brown sugar
Caramelizing it creates the deep, toasty flavor and colour of the syrup.

The step that matters

Slowly stir the egg mixture into the hot milk until it thickens.. Adding hot milk to eggs gradually, while stirring, tempers them so the proteins thicken smoothly instead of scrambling or curdling. Heating too fast or too unevenly can make the custard grainy.

“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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