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Dessert

Caramel Cream

A caramel custard made with sugar, cinnamon, lemon peel, eggs, milk, cream, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Caramel Cream

Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Caramel Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Combine sugar, cinnamon, lemon peel, and water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until light brown.

Make the custard

  1. Add yolks, milk, and sugar.

  2. Stir over heat until thickened.

  3. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve into a basin.

Set and chill

  1. Fold in whipped cream and dissolved gelatin. Mix well.

  2. Dip a mold in cold water.

  3. Pour the cream into the mold.

  4. Set in a cold place or on ice.

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. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 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

Eggs yolks
Thicken the custard when heated and add richness to the cream.
Cream
Adds fat and body, giving the set cream a smooth, soft texture.
Gelatine
Sets the cream so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Milk
Provides liquid for the custard, giving a lighter, less rich base than cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and, when boiled, caramelises to add colour and flavour.

The step that matters

Stir over heat until thickened. Egg yolks set at a gentle heat and can scramble if overheated. Stir steadily over low heat so the custard thickens smoothly rather than curdling.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, egg, milk, 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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