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Dessert

Baked Caramel Custard

A custard baked with a caramel base, made from milk, eggs, vanilla, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Baked Caramel Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, whip the eggs until well beaten.

  3. Carefully stir the hot milk into the beaten eggs.

  4. Flavor the mixture with vanilla and sugar to taste.

Make the caramel

  1. In a small saucepan, add the caster sugar and stir over medium heat until melted and brown.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of hot water to the caramel and stir thoroughly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the caramel into a tin mold or cake tin, coating the sides.

  2. Pour the custard mixture into the tin over the caramel.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven, standing in a larger tin of boiling water, until the custard is set.

Cool and serve

  1. Let it cool, then turn out and serve.

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. Vanilla + sugartop 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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar 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 into a sliceable structure as they cook.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the custard its soft, creamy moisture.
Sugar
Melts and browns to make the caramel, adding sweetness and colour.
Vanilla essence
Adds a warm aroma that rounds out the custard's flavour.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. Egg proteins set at gentle heat. Direct or excessive heat makes the custard curdle and turn grainy. Standing the tin in boiling water moderates the oven's heat so the custard sets smooth and silky.

“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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