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Dessert

Burnt Sugar

A custard made by boiling brown sugar, adding an egg and milk mixture, seasoning with cinnamon, then cooling and freezing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Burnt Sugar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs well and stir in the flour.

  2. Strain the egg mixture through a sieve into the milk.

  3. In a skillet, heat the brown sugar until it boils.

  4. Add the egg and milk mixture to the boiling sugar and cook for 2-3 minutes.

  5. Season with cinnamon in a muslin bag and boil in the custard.

Chill and freeze

  1. Once the custard is cold, freeze it.

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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 as they cook, giving it body and a thick, creamy texture.
Flour
Thickens the egg mixture and helps keep the custard smooth rather than grainy.
New milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds richness and creaminess.
Light brown sugar
Melts and caramelises in the skillet, giving the custard its burnt sugar flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard over the boiling sugar. Egg proteins set with heat, so the mixture must be cooked gently and stirred to avoid curdling or scrambling. Cooking it for just the stated 2-3 minutes helps keep it 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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