Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 Filling
Ingredients
Directions
Combine cream and brown sugar in a saucepan.
Cook without stirring until it forms a hard drop in water.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 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
- Brown sugar
- Provides sweetness and caramel flavor as it cooks and browns.
- Cream
- Adds fat and moisture, giving the sauce a smooth, rich texture.
The step that matters
Cook without stirring until it forms a hard drop in water. Stirring can encourage sugar crystals to form, leading to a grainy sauce. Watching for a hard drop in cold water shows when the sugar has reached the right concentration for a firm but pourable sauce once cooled.
“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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