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Dessert

Caramel Pudding

A custard pudding made with caramelized sugar, egg yolks, and milk, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and milk 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 ↓

Caramel Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mould

  1. Boil the loaf sugar with water until the syrup becomes deep brown.

  2. Warm a small basin.

  3. Pour the syrup into the basin.

  4. Turn the basin until the inside is completely coated.

Make the custard

  1. Strain the yolks of the eggs.

  2. Mix the yolks gradually with the milk.

  3. Pour the mixture into the prepared mould.

  4. Cover the mould with a piece of paper.

Steam and serve

  1. Set the mould in a saucepan of cold water, ensuring the water does not cover the top of the mould.

  2. Cover and let it boil gently by the side of the fire for one hour.

  3. Remove the saucepan to a cool place.

  4. When the water is cold, carefully take out the mould.

  5. Turn out the pudding.

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

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

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and milk 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

Egg yolks
Set the custard and give the pudding its rich, smooth texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the yolks thicken into a custard.
Loaf sugar
Caramelises into the deep brown syrup that coats the mould and flavours the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until deep brown. Sugar darkens quickly once it passes the golden stage, so it can turn bitter if overcooked. Stop when it is deep brown to get caramel flavour without burnt taste.

“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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