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Dessert

Caramel Custaed

A custard made with milk, sugar, eggs, corn starch, and caramelized brown sugar, flavored with vanilla.

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 ↓

Caramel Custaed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the milk, white sugar, and a pinch of salt over medium heat in a farina kettle; if unavailable, use a tin pail set in a pot of hot water.

  2. Beat the eggs in a large bowl without separating them.

  3. Wet the corn starch with a little cold milk.

  4. Heat the brown sugar in a tin pan over medium heat, stirring until it is thoroughly scorched but not burned.

Make the custard

  1. Once the milk is scalding, pour it over the beaten eggs.

  2. Return the mixture to the kettle over medium heat and stir in the corn starch until it thickens.

  3. Stir in the scorched sugar, remove from heat, and add a generous amount of vanilla extract.

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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Eggs
Set the custard by coagulating when heated, giving it body and structure.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture as it heats, giving the custard a smooth, firm texture.
Brown sugar
Scorched to caramel, it adds deep, toasty flavour and colour to the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, providing moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Stir in the corn starch until it thickens. Starch thickens only when the mixture is hot enough and kept moving, so stirring over heat prevents lumps and a thin custard. Eggs curdle if overheated, so keep the heat moderate.

“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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