Skip to main content
Dessert

Caramel Custard

A custard made with milk, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, vanilla or wine, baked with a caramel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Caramel Custard

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 Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk but do not boil it.

  2. Pour the hot milk over the yolks and sugar, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the egg whites and flavor with nutmeg and vanilla or wine.

  4. Set the mixture aside to cool.

Make the caramel and bake

  1. For the caramel, melt 1½ teacupfuls of sugar in a baking dish on the stove, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

  2. Once melted, pour the slightly cooled custard into the dish with the caramel.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until firm.

Serve

  1. Serve cold, preferably baked in molds and turned out onto a platter with caramel as sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nutmeg + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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
Set the custard into a firm, sliceable structure as they cook.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and creamy body of the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, melted, forms the caramel sauce.

The step that matters

Melting the caramel sugar. Sugar can go from amber to burnt very quickly. Constant stirring heats it evenly so it melts into a smooth, golden caramel rather than scorching in spots.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Peppermintfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, 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.

More caramel custard recipes

Pudding 3Soft 3 See all 133 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes