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Nougat Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream with nuts and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Nougat Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, sugar, egg yolks, and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring until thickened to make a custard.

  2. Strain the custard and let it cool.

Whip and fold

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the heavy cream until stiff peaks form.

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Fold the whipped cream and beaten egg whites into the cooled custard.

Add nuts and freeze

  1. Add the chopped nuts, almond extract, and vanilla extract. Mix well.

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

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. Pistachio + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Pistachio + walnuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together195 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Walnut + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Filbert + almondtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a custard and add richness to the base.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and body, giving the ice cream a smooth, rich texture.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add airy lightness to the mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen ice cream.
Pistachios
Add crunch and nutty flavor to the frozen ice cream.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thickened. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can scramble them and leave lumps. Stirring over medium heat keeps the custard smooth, and a properly thickened base gives the ice cream a creamy texture once frozen.

Swap the filbert

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

  1. Cashew nutfits better
  2. Brazil nutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Filbertthe original

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