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Dessert

Caramel Pudding

A sweet pudding made with cornstarch, brown sugar, milk, butter, vanilla, nuts, and topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Blend cornstarch with a little cold milk.

  2. In a pan, melt butter and brown sugar until quite brown.

  3. Add scalded milk and stir in the cornstarch mixture.

  4. Remove from heat, beat well, and add vanilla and chopped nuts.

  5. Pour into glass dishes and let cool.

Decorate and serve

  1. Decorate with whipped cream using a piping bag and sprinkle with chopped walnuts.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

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

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk and sugar mixture into a smooth, set custard.
Brown sugar
Adds caramel flavour and sweetness when melted and browned with butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch thickens into the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and helps build the caramel flavour in the pan.

The step that matters

Browning the butter and brown sugar. Cooking the sugar until quite brown builds the caramel flavour, but over-browning turns it bitter. Stir constantly so it does not scorch before the milk is added.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vanilla, milk, butter, cream, walnut. 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.

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