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Dessert

Caramel Sauce

A sweet sauce made by cooking sugar with water, boiling water, cornstarch, and optional lemon, vanilla, or nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Caramel Sauce

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Caramel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Combine sugar and water in an iron pan.

  2. Stir until the syrup turns a clear brown color.

  3. Add boiling water and stir until well blended.

Thicken and finish

  1. Dissolve cornstarch in a little cold water.

  2. Add the dissolved cornstarch to the pan.

  3. Boil for 1 minute until melted.

  4. Mix in lemon juice and rind, vanilla, or nutmeg if desired.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Coffee + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Vanilla + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Sugar
Caramelizes to form the sauce's brown color and sweet, toasty flavor.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, pourable sauce as it boils.
Lemon juice and rind
Adds acidity and bright aroma that balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir until the syrup turns a clear brown color. Sugar caramelizes quickly once it darkens, so it can go from amber to bitter and burnt in seconds. Watch the color closely and remove from heat at the right shade.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, coffee, vanilla, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Blueberryfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, coffee, vanilla, nutmeg. 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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