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Dessert

Caramel Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made by caramelizing sugar and mixing with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 caramel

  1. Place 1 pound of sugar in a large copper pan over heat without water.

  2. Stir until the sugar dissolves into a light brown liquid.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Stir in ½ cup boiling water with a long spatula.

Build the base

  1. Thin down the mixture with ½ pint of cream.

  2. Return to heat.

  3. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

  4. Gradually add 1½ pints more cream.

  5. Bring to a boil.

  6. Pour this boiling cream over 2 quarts of cream.

  7. Add 1 pound of sugar.

  8. Stir until dissolved.

Finish and freeze

  1. Strain.

  2. Cool.

  3. Freeze.

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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Caramelizes to add deep, toffee-like flavor and sweetness.
Cream
Supplies fat for a rich, smooth, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Caramelizing the sugar without water. Dry sugar melts and darkens quickly once it reaches its caramelizing point, so it can turn bitter and burn if left unattended. Constant stirring keeps the heat even and the color light.

“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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