Skip to main content
Dessert

Caeamel Custard

A custard thickened with caramelized sugar and boiled milk, baked until firm.

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

Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Caeamel Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard base

  1. Heat the milk in a custard kettle until it boils.

  2. Beat the eggs with the sugar until light.

  3. Pour the boiling milk over the beaten eggs and sugar, stirring constantly.

  4. Return the mixture to the heat until it thickens, then remove and cool.

Make the caramel syrup

  1. In a small saucepan, heat the loaf sugar until it melts and browns evenly.

  2. Add enough boiling water to the melted sugar to make a thick syrup.

Finish and bake

  1. Flavor the custard with the syrup to taste.

  2. Pour the custard into cups and bake in a moderate oven (350°F) until firm in the center.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into a smooth, creamy custard with the eggs.
Eggs
Coagulate on heating, giving the custard its structure and firm set.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps keep it tender.
Loaf sugar
Caramelizes into a browned syrup that adds color and a deep, bittersweet flavor.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling milk into the eggs. Adding very hot milk to eggs too quickly can scramble them. Pouring slowly while stirring constantly spreads the heat evenly, so the mixture thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

“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.

More caramel custard recipes

Pudding 3Soft 3 See all 133 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes