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Dessert

Caramel Pudding

A sweet custard made with milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and caramelized sugar.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel milk

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Melt the sugar in a pan until light brown.

  3. Add boiling water to the melted sugar.

  4. Let the mixture boil for a moment.

  5. Stir the sugar mixture into the milk.

  6. Remove the milk from heat.

  7. Add vanilla to the mixture.

  8. Let the mixture cool slightly.

Bake and serve

  1. Quickly stir in the beaten eggs and additional sugar.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  3. Place the mold in a pan of boiling water.

  4. Bake until set.

  5. Let it cool before serving plain or 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.

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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

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 the custard into a firm, sliceable texture as they cook.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and creamy body of the pudding.
Sugar
Melted to make the caramel that flavours and colours the pudding, and also sweetens it.

The step that matters

Quickly stir in the beaten eggs and additional sugar.. Eggs can scramble if the milk mixture is too hot when they are added. Cooling the mixture slightly first and stirring quickly keeps the eggs smooth so the custard sets evenly.

“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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