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Dessert

Creme Caramel

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

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 ↓

Creme Caramel

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil 1 quart of milk in a double boiler.

  2. Dissolve 1 cup of brown sugar in a skillet over heat, stirring constantly until liquid.

  3. Add the hot milk to the dissolved sugar and stir until fully combined.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in the yolks of 4 eggs and 3 teaspoons of cornstarch dissolved in 1 cup of cold milk.

  5. Return to heat and cook until the mixture thickens.

  6. Remove from heat and stir in 2 teaspoons of vanilla.

  7. Beat well and pour into molds.

Serve

  1. Serve 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and give it a smooth, set texture when cooked.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture so it holds its shape when cooled.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves to form the caramel flavour base.
Milk
Forms the main liquid body of the custard and carries its richness.

The step that matters

Return to heat and cook until the mixture thickens. Egg yolks and cornstarch thicken only when heated gently; overheating can curdle the yolks or leave the custard lumpy, so stir steadily and watch closely.

“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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