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Caramel Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream flavored with caramel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Caramel Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Bring the cream to a boil.

  2. Mix the egg yolks and the cup of sugar.

  3. Beat until light.

  4. Add the mixture to the whisked egg whites.

  5. Combine this with the boiling cream.

  6. Bring to a boil again.

  7. Remove from heat.

  8. Let cool.

Make the caramel

  1. Stir the 4 tablespoons of sugar in a hot pan until it becomes oily and smokes.

  2. Gradually stir some of the cream into the caramel until it reaches a pourable consistency.

Finish

  1. If necessary, strain the mixture before pouring it into the ice cream freezer.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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
Egg yolks thicken the custard as they heat, giving the ice cream a rich, smooth body.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, which keeps the frozen ice cream smooth and creamy rather than icy.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and, when melted to caramel, adds deep flavor and color.

The step that matters

Adding the cream to the hot caramel. Caramel is very hot and can seize into hard lumps or spatter when cold liquid hits it. Adding the cream gradually and stirring keeps the caramel smooth and evenly blended.

“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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