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Dessert

Caramel Custard

A custard made with milk, sugar, eggs, salt, vanilla, and topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Caramel Custard

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 ↓

Caramel Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the caramel and milk

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Melt the sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly until it turns dark.

  3. Add the melted sugar to the hot milk; if it hardens, it will melt again.

Make and serve the custard

  1. Beat the eggs with salt, then add the hot milk mixture and mix well.

  2. Return the mixture to the double boiler and cook over boiling water, stirring constantly until smooth and it coats the spoon.

  3. Strain the mixture and flavor with vanilla.

  4. Serve 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. 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. Vanilla + creamtop 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

Eggs
Set when gently heated, thickening the milk base into a custard with a smooth texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a creamy custard.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the custard and, melted to a dark caramel, adds color and a deeper, bittersweet flavor.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma to the finished custard.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard over boiling water until it coats the spoon. Egg proteins thicken the custard as they set, but if they get too hot they scramble and turn grainy. Stirring constantly over gentle heat keeps the custard smooth.

“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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