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Caramel Cream

A sweet custard made with brown sugar, milk, cinnamon, egg yolks, and optional cream.

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

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 ↓

Caramel Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a skillet, combine 2 pints of brown sugar and stir until it turns a deep reddish brown.

  2. Boil 2 quarts of milk with 6 sticks of cinnamon.

  3. Once boiling, remove from heat and stir in the beaten yolks of 8 eggs and the burnt sugar.

  4. Add a little white sugar to taste.

Freeze and serve

  1. Freeze the mixture.

  2. For improved flavor, add 1 quart of cream before serving.

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

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

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Caramelizes into a deep, toasty flavor and adds sweetness and color.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and gives the custard its creamy body.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the custard as they gently set with heat.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice as it infuses into the hot milk.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, fuller mouthfeel from its fat.

The step that matters

Caramelizing the brown sugar. Sugar darkens quickly from caramel to bitter, burnt flavor. Stop at a deep reddish brown, because overcooked sugar will taste harsh in the finished custard.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Peppermintfits less well

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