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Dessert

Caramel Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from caramelized sugar, milk, egg yolks, flour, and rich cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Burn the sugar in a saucepan until it turns dark brown, then set it aside.

Make the custard

  1. Combine the milk, egg yolks, and flour in a double boiler.

  2. Cook the mixture until it boils.

  3. Stir in the burnt sugar.

  4. Let the mixture boil for 5 minutes.

  5. Remove the mixture from heat.

  6. Let the mixture cool for 2 hours.

  7. Mix in the rich cream.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture.

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

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Sugar
Caramelized sugar gives the ice cream its deep, toasty, bittersweet flavour.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard is cooked in and later frozen.
Egg yolks
Thicken the base as they cook and add richness to the custard.
Flour
Helps thicken the mixture and gives it a smoother body during cooking.
Rich cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a smooth, creamy texture after freezing.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until it boils. Egg yolks and flour thicken the base as it heats, but overheating can scramble the eggs and leave lumps. Heating gently and stirring keeps the custard smooth before it is cooled and frozen.

“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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