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Dessert

Caeamel Frosting

A frosting made from blown sugar, cream, butter, vanilla, sugar, and sour cream, cooked and cooled to a spreadable consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Caeamel Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting base

  1. Combine 3 cups of blown sugar with enough cream to form a thick paste.

  2. Stir until smooth, then place on the stove and continue stirring.

  3. When nearly cooked, add a butter ball the size of a walnut.

  4. Test the consistency by placing a small amount in a saucer and cooling it on ice.

  5. Once the right consistency is achieved, flavor with vanilla.

  6. If the mixture cools too much, work in a little cold cream.

Make the caramel and finish

  1. For the caramel, boil 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of sour cream slowly until it thickens.

  2. Whip until almost cold and spread on cake.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

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

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

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

Blown sugar
Forms the sweet body of the frosting and sets firm as it cooks and cools.
Cream
Makes the sugar into a spreadable paste and adds moisture to the frosting.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture to the finished frosting.
Sugar
Caramelizes with the sour cream to give the caramel its sweetness and color.
Sour cream
Adds tang and body to the caramel as it thickens.

The step that matters

Testing the consistency on ice. Sugar frostings set by temperature, so a sample cooled in a saucer shows whether the mixture is ready to whip. Too little cooking leaves it soft and runny, while too much makes it grainy or hard to spread.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, corn, butter, vanilla):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, corn, butter, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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