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Dessert

White or Angel Ice Cream

A light, meringue-based ice cream flavored with hot syrup, powdered sugar, and orange or noyau extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

White or Angel Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Beat the egg whites, but do not beat them to a froth.

  2. Stir in the powdered sugar, then add the cream.

  3. Scald the mixture in a double boiler, then remove from heat and stir until cold.

Freeze and finish

  1. Add the flavoring and freeze the mixture.

  2. Once frozen, remove the whisk and stir in the Italian meringue.

Mold and set

  1. Turn the mixture into a mold and pack it in ice and salt for 2 to 3 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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Syrup + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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 whites
Whipped lightly, they add air and a delicate, tender body to the frozen dessert.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the base and dissolves smoothly, keeping the texture fine rather than grainy.
Cream
Adds fat, which makes the frozen dessert rich and smooth rather than icy.
Italian meringue
Folded in at the end, it adds extra airiness and lightness to the frozen mixture.
Noyau or orange extract
Provides the main aroma and flavor that defines the dessert.

The step that matters

Stir in the Italian meringue once the mixture is frozen. The meringue is airy and deflates easily. If the base is still too liquid it collapses and thins the mixture, and if it is frozen rock-hard it cannot be folded in evenly, so the lightness is lost.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, syrup, sugar, cream. 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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