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Dessert

Philadelphia Ice Cream

A simple ice cream made by scalding cream and milk, adding sugar and salt, then freezing and ripening in ice and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Philadelphia Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Scald the cream and milk mixture, but do not boil.

  2. Beat the mixture until cold.

  3. Add the sugar and salt.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture.

  2. Once frozen, remove from the freezer and pack into molds.

Ripen

  1. Pack the molds in ice and salt, cover, and allow to ripen for 2 to 5 hours.

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

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Cream
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Milk
Provides liquid and milk solids that give the base body and dairy flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer and scoopable.

The step that matters

Scald the cream and milk mixture, but do not boil.. Heating dairy gently is enough to prepare it, while boiling can scorch the milk and give it a cooked, off flavor.

“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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