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Dessert

Caramel Pudding

A custard dessert made with milk, egg yolks, brown sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, topped with meringue and served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Heat milk in a saucepan until it boils.

  2. Beat egg yolks in a bowl, then gradually pour the hot milk into them while stirring.

  3. Add brown sugar and dissolved cornstarch to the mixture, stirring well.

  4. Return the mixture to heat and cook until thickened.

  5. Pour into a pudding pan and flavor with vanilla.

Bake and serve

  1. Make meringue from egg whites and spread it over the pudding.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the meringue is slightly browned.

  3. Serve cold with whipped cream.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and gives it a creamy body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set and add richness and a smooth texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel-like flavor to the pudding.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard when heated, giving it a firm, sliceable body.

The step that matters

Return the mixture to heat and cook until thickened. Cornstarch must be heated to fully gelatinize before it thickens. Stopping too early leaves the pudding thin, while overheating egg yolks can curdle them.

“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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