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Caramel Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream flavored with caramelized sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 custard

  1. Beat the eggs, cornstarch, and 1 cup of granulated sugar together.

  2. Stir in the milk while boiling.

  3. Let the mixture boil for 15 minutes.

Make the caramel and combine

  1. In a hot skillet, stir the remaining 1 cup of granulated sugar until brown.

  2. Quickly add the browned sugar to the boiling custard, stirring rapidly.

  3. Set aside to cool.

Finish and freeze

  1. Fold in the whipped cream and powdered sugar.

  2. Flavor to your preference.

  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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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).

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
Egg proteins set when heated, thickening the custard and giving it body.
Cornstarch
Starch swells when boiled with liquid, thickening the custard so it coats a spoon.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the eggs and starch set into.
Cream
Adds fat that makes the ice cream rich and smooth, with fewer large ice crystals.
Granulated sugar
Browns in a hot skillet to form caramel, adding deep toasted flavor and sweetness.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily in cold cream, adding sweetness without a grainy texture.

The step that matters

Adding the browned sugar to the boiling custard. Hot caramel can harden into lumps when it hits a cooler liquid. Adding it quickly and stirring rapidly disperses it so it melts evenly into the custard instead of seizing into hard bits.

“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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