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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) · 8 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 Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Caramelize ½ cup sugar; gradually add boiling water.

Make the custard

  1. Cook milk, egg, salt, and remaining sugar to make a soft custard.

  2. Add caramel to the custard.

Chill and freeze

  1. Chill.

  2. Add cream and vanilla.

  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. 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sugar
Sweetens the base, and caramelized sugar adds deep, toasty flavor.
Egg
Thickens the milk into a soft custard as it cooks, giving the base structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the caramel is stirred into.
Cream
Adds fat, which makes the frozen ice cream rich and smooth rather than icy.

The step that matters

Gradually add boiling water to the caramel. Caramel is extremely hot and can seize into hard lumps or spatter when liquid is poured in. Adding the boiling water slowly lets the sugar dissolve smoothly.

“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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