Skip to main content
Dessert

Baked Caramel Custard

A custard baked with a caramel topping made from milk, eggs, vanilla, and sugar.

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

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 ↓

Baked Caramel Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the caramel

  1. Melt the caster sugar over medium heat until brown.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of hot water to the caramel and stir thoroughly.

  3. Pour the caramel into a tin mold or cake tin, coating the sides.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the eggs until well mixed.

  3. Carefully stir the hot milk into the beaten eggs.

  4. Add vanilla and sugar to taste.

  5. Pour the custard mixture into the tin.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the tin in a larger tin filled with boiling water and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  2. Let it cool, then turn out and serve.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vanilla and sugar 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

Milk
Forms the liquid body of the custard and keeps it soft and moist.
Eggs
Set as they heat, giving the custard its firm, sliceable structure.
Sugar
Melts to form the caramel, adding sweetness, colour and a slightly bitter depth.
Vanilla essence
Adds aroma and a rounder flavour to the custard.

The step that matters

Browning the caramel. Sugar moves from amber to bitter and burnt within seconds, so it must be removed from heat at a deep golden brown. Adding hot water makes it spatter, so it should be added carefully and stirred until smooth.

“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

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes