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Dessert

Caramel Custard

A sweet custard made with caramelized sugar, milk, egg, and vanilla, baked or steamed until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the caramel

  1. Melt the sugar in a pan until it turns to caramel.

  2. Add the hot water to the caramel and stir to form a syrup.

Make the custard and bake

  1. Combine the syrup with the scalded milk, egg, and vanilla extract.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven or steam until set.

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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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

Egg
Its proteins set when heated, giving the custard its firm structure.
Milk
Supplies liquid and milk proteins that make the custard creamy and tender.
Sugar
Caramelizes into a brown, slightly bitter flavor and sweetens the custard.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma that rounds out the custard's flavor.

The step that matters

Melt the sugar in a pan until it turns to caramel.. Sugar goes from amber to burnt within seconds, and burnt sugar tastes bitter. Watch the color closely and stop cooking as soon as it reaches a rich golden brown.

“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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