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Dessert

Caramel Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from milk, eggs, sugar, flour, cream, and caramelized sugar.

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

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. In a bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, and flour.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling milk and cook for 20 minutes, stirring often.

Caramelize and cool

  1. In a small frying pan, add the small cup of sugar and stir over heat until it turns liquid and begins to smoke.

  2. Pour the caramelized sugar into the boiling mixture and set aside to cool.

  3. Once cool, add the cream and strain the mixture into an ice cream maker.

Freeze

  1. Freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

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

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the ice cream body and richness.
Flour
Thickens the custard base so it holds together and stays smooth.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and, caramelized, adds deep toasty flavor.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs and flour thicken.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture in the frozen ice cream.

The step that matters

Caramelizing the sugar. Sugar can go from amber to burnt quickly. Stirring over steady heat until it liquefies and just begins to smoke gives a deep flavor without bitterness. Pouring it into the hot base must be done carefully, since the mixture can splatter and the caramel hardens on contact with cold surfaces.

“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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