Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Baked Custard in a Saucepan, with Burnt-Sugar Sauce — Flan Anglais Au Caramel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the custard
Whisk 6 eggs and 1 pint of milk together until well combined. Flavor to taste.
Make the caramel
In a small enamel-lined saucepan, add a few lumps of white sugar and just enough water to moisten the sugar.
Heat the saucepan on the stove until the sugar turns a bright golden color, then remove from heat.
Quickly add enough water to the caramel to prevent it from tasting watery or syrupy.
Cook and serve
Swirl the saucepan to coat the sides with caramel, then pour in the custard mixture.
Cover the saucepan with a lid and place hot embers on top. Cook gently for the same time as baking.
Serve the custard hot or cold.
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.
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Egg + milktop 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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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 into a tender, sliceable structure as they cook.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base and creamy body of the custard.
- White sugar
- Forms the caramel that coats the pan and adds sweetness and color.
The step that matters
Heating the sugar to golden. Sugar darkens quickly once it turns golden and keeps cooking from residual heat, so it can turn bitter and burnt. Removing it from the heat at the right color, then adding water promptly, stops the cooking and keeps the caramel flavorful.
“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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