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Dessert

Caramel Pudding

A sweet dessert made by combining caramelized sugar with milk, vanilla, eggs, and baking until set.

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

Make the caramel

  1. Melt the sugar in an iron saucepan.

  2. Add the boiling water to the melted sugar.

  3. Boil the mixture briefly.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Combine the caramel mixture with the heated milk.

  3. Remove the combined mixture from heat.

  4. Stir in the vanilla.

  5. When the mixture is cool but not cold, quickly stir in the beaten eggs and sugar.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  2. Place the mold in a pan of boiling water.

  3. Cook the mold in the oven until jelly-like.

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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 body of the pudding and gives it a creamy, soft texture.
Eggs
Set when cooked, giving the pudding its firm, jelly-like structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and, melted, forms the caramel that flavours it.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs and sugar when the mixture is cool but not cold. If the mixture is too hot the eggs can scramble, and if it is cold they will not blend in evenly. Stirring in quickly keeps the custard smooth before it goes into the oven to set.

“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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