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Dessert

Caramel Pudding

A caramel custard made with sugar, lemon juice, milk, eggs, and vanilla, steamed until set.

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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Crush the lump sugar and place it in a round mold with lemon juice.

  2. Heat over low flame, stirring until it turns golden brown.

  3. Rotate the mold to coat the sides, then dip the outside in cold water to set the caramel.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks and whole eggs together in a bowl.

  2. Boil the milk, then pour it over the eggs while stirring quickly.

  3. Add the castor sugar and vanilla, then strain the mixture into the mold.

Steam

  1. Steam the pudding for 1 hour.

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. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 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

Lump sugar
Melts and caramelises to form the golden coating on the mold.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set and add richness.
Whole eggs
Provide structure so the custard sets firm when steamed.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds creaminess.

The step that matters

Caramel coloring. Sugar darkens quickly once it starts to colour, so it can turn bitter if overheated. Stirring over low heat until golden brown gives even colour and a clean caramel flavour.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, egg, vanilla):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, egg, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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