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Dessert

Marine Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream made with milk, egg yolks, cornstarch, sugar, cream, and vanilla, optionally flavored with fruit juice.

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

Marine Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat 1 quart of milk in a double boiler.

  2. Beat 4 egg yolks until light, then mix in 1 tablespoon of cornstarch dissolved in a little milk.

  3. Pour some hot milk over the egg mixture, then return it all to the boiler.

  4. Cook for 10 minutes, then cool the mixture.

Finish the ice cream

  1. Stir 1 cup of sugar into the beaten egg whites, then add 1 pint of cream.

  2. Combine this with the cooled custard and flavor with 1 tablespoon of vanilla.

  3. Freeze the mixture.

  4. For fruit ice cream, add ½ pint of sweetened fruit juice and ½ cup of sugar before freezing.

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

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

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 yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, and add richness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard becomes smooth and body-rich.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard is built on.
Cream
Adds fat, which makes the frozen texture smooth and creamy.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and keeps the frozen texture softer.
Vanilla
Adds aroma and rounds out the flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the custard gently. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated. Cooking slowly in a double boiler lets the cornstarch and yolks thicken evenly into a smooth custard.

“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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