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 Custard
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Heat the milk in a saucepan.
Melt the sugar in an iron pan over medium heat, stirring until it turns brown. Add the water to the caramelized sugar and stir into the hot milk.
Beat the egg yolks until creamy. Add salt, vanilla, and part of the hot milk to the yolks, and mix the yolk mixture well.
Combine the yolk mixture with the remaining milk.
Cook the mixture over boiling water until it thickens and coats the spoon.
Strain the custard into a serving dish to cool.
Make the meringue and serve
Beat the egg whites until stiff. Mix the stiff egg whites with the remaining caramel and powdered sugar until stiff enough to hold its shape.
Pile the meringue on top of the custard.
Serve.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard as they set when gently heated, giving it a rich body.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into stiff foam to form the light, airy meringue topping.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard that the eggs thicken.
- Sugar
- Melted to caramel for colour and flavour, and sweetens the custard.
- Powdered sugar
- Stabilises the whipped egg whites so the meringue holds its shape.
The step that matters
Cooking the custard over boiling water. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. If the heat is too high, they scramble and turn grainy, so the custard must be cooked slowly until it just coats a spoon.
“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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