Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓
Creme Glacee Au Caramel
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
Melt the brown sugar in a frying pan over medium heat, stirring constantly until it becomes liquid.
Do not let the sugar scorch or get too dark.
Combine and freeze
Gradually pour the caramel into the boiling milk, mixing well.
Once cold, strain the mixture into the cream and freeze.
Optionally, whip 1 pint of the cream and fold it in before freezing.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and milk 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
- Brown sugar
- Provides sweetness and the deep caramel flavour once melted into a liquid.
- Cream
- Its fat gives the frozen ice cream a rich, smooth, creamy texture.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the caramel is dissolved into before chilling and freezing.
The step that matters
Melting the sugar without scorching. Sugar darkens quickly once it passes from liquid into caramel. If it scorches it turns bitter and burnt, and that flavour carries into the whole ice cream base, so the sugar should be stirred constantly and removed before it gets too dark.
“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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