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Caramel Custard

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Caramel Custard

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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Caramelize the sugar in an iron omelet pan, stirring constantly until melted and light brown.

  2. Slowly add the scalded milk, being careful not to let it boil over.

Make the custard

  1. Once the sugar is dissolved, slowly mix the milk into the beaten eggs.

  2. Add the salt and vanilla extract, then strain the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake as you would a custard until set.

  2. Chill and serve with caramel sauce.

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. 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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 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 tender, sliceable structure as they cook.
Sugar
Caramelizes to form the amber sauce and sweetens the custard.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that gives the custard its creamy texture.

The step that matters

Adding the scalded milk to the caramel. Milk poured into hot caramel can bubble up violently and seize the sugar into lumps. Adding it slowly, and keeping it from boiling over, lets the caramel loosen smoothly into a sauce.

“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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