Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Caramel Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
Combine sugar and a little water in a saucepan.
Boil until the mixture turns light brown.
Finish and freeze
Stir the caramel into the cooked ingredients.
Add 2 quarts of cream and mix well.
Freeze the mixture using your preferred method.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Caramelises when boiled, giving the ice cream its toasty, bittersweet flavour and sweetness.
- Cream
- Adds fat and richness, giving the frozen ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.
The step that matters
Boiling the sugar to light brown. Sugar caramelises in a narrow window of temperature. Stopping at pale colour leaves the flavour flat, while going too far turns it bitter and burnt. Watch the colour closely.
“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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