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Dessert

Ice Cream Without a Freezer

A custard-based ice cream made by boiling, cooling, adding cream, and freezing with ice and rock salt.

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 ↓

Ice Cream Without a Freezer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of 8 eggs until light, then stir in 4 cups of sugar.

  2. Gradually add 1 quart of heated milk while beating continuously.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

  4. Boil the mixture in a pail set inside another with hot water for about 15 minutes, stirring steadily until thickened.

  5. Pour into a bowl to cool completely.

  6. Once cool, beat in 3 pints of rich sweet cream and 5 teaspoons of vanilla.

Freeze

  1. Transfer to a pail with a close-fitting cover and pack with ¾ ice and ¼ rock salt.

  2. Beat the custard for 5 minutes.

  3. Cover and add more ice and salt.

  4. Cover with a thick mat or blanket and let it stand for 1 hour.

  5. Uncover and scrape the frozen custard from the sides and bottom.

  6. Beat again until smooth.

  7. Replace the cover, ice, salt, and blanket.

  8. Let it sit for 5 to 6 hours, replenishing ice and salt as needed.

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 and add richness as they set during gentle cooking.
Egg whites
Add airiness and lightness to the custard base.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point so the ice cream stays scoopable.
Rich milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a custard.
Rich sweet cream
Adds fat for a smooth, creamy texture that resists iciness.

The step that matters

Boiling the custard until thickened. Egg yolks must be heated gently and stirred constantly. Overheating can scramble them, leaving grainy texture, while underheating leaves the base too thin to set properly.

“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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