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Dessert

Caramel Pudding

A sweet custard made with brown sugar, sweet milk, eggs, corn starch, butter, vanilla, and topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the caramel

  1. Place brown sugar in a pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) until browned, watching carefully to prevent burning.

  2. Add sweet milk and stir until dissolved.

Make the custard

  1. Cook in a double boiler.

  2. Add beaten egg yolks and corn starch.

  3. Cook until thick and smooth.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Beat in butter and vanilla.

  6. Pour into a baking dish.

Top and bake

  1. Beat egg whites with white sugar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the whipped egg whites over the pudding.

  3. Bake until the top is light brown.

  4. Serve cold, optionally with 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Brown sugar
Browns in the pan to build caramel flavour and colour for the pudding.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites whip into the light topping.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture as it cooks, giving the custard body.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the starch and yolks set in.
White sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the egg whites hold stiff peaks.

The step that matters

Browning the brown sugar. Sugar can scorch quickly once it darkens, turning bitter. Stopping at light browning keeps the caramel flavour pleasant and prevents a burnt taste in the pudding.

“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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