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Dessert

Almond Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made with heavy cream, milk, sugar, almond extract, and chopped almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Almond Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, mix the heavy cream, milk, and sugar until the sugar dissolves.

  2. Stir in the almond extract and chopped almonds.

Churn and freeze

  1. Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer's instructions.

  2. Transfer to a container and freeze until firm.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Heavy cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth, creamy texture.
Milk
Adds liquid and dairy solids that make the base lighter than cream alone.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
Almond extract
Provides the main almond aroma and flavor.
Chopped almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavor against the smooth base.

The step that matters

Dissolve the sugar fully before churning. Undissolved sugar crystals can stay gritty in the frozen ice cream, and sugar also controls how firm the texture freezes, so the base should be fully smooth before it goes into the machine.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

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