Skip to main content
Dessert

Caramel Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from cream, eggs, sugar, caramel, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Caramel Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until very light.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the yolk mixture.

  3. Heat the cream in a double boiler.

  4. Add the egg mixture to the cream and return to the boiler, cooking until thick.

Finish and freeze

  1. Cool the mixture.

  2. Add the caramel and vanilla.

  3. Freeze the mixture.

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

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Cream
Provides fat for a rich, smooth texture and a creamy body.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard as they cook; whipped whites add lightness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the yolks whip up light and pale.
Caramel
Adds deep, toasty caramel flavor and color with extra sweetness.
Vanilla
Adds aroma that rounds out the sweet, caramel flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg mixture into the cream until thick. Egg proteins set with heat and can curdle or scramble if the mixture gets too hot. Cook gently over a double boiler, stirring, until it thickens enough to coat a spoon.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes