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Dessert

Caramel Icing

A sweet glaze made from brown sugar, cream or milk, butter, and salt, boiled until thick and then beaten until creamy.

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

Why it works: Butter and milk 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. In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, cream or milk, and salt.

  2. If using milk, add the butter.

  3. Boil the mixture without stirring until it threads.

Cool and finish

  1. Remove from heat and let it cool.

  2. Once cool, beat the mixture until creamy and spread over the 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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides the sweetness and caramel flavor that forms the icing base.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping the sugar form a smooth, creamy icing.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer texture and smoother finish in the icing.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring until it threads. Stirring while the sugar syrup boils can trigger crystallization, leaving a grainy icing. Boiling to the threading stage concentrates the sugar so the icing sets firm enough to spread once beaten.

“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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