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Dessert

Burnt Filbert Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made with cream, eggs, syrup, and roasted filberts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and syrup are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,964 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Burnt Filbert Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the nuts

  1. Roast the Barcelona nuts in the oven until well done.

  2. Pound the nuts slightly.

  3. Mix the pounded nuts with some cream.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine the eggs, cream, and syrup.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Mix the roasted filberts into the mixture before freezing.

Freeze

  1. Pour the mixture into molds.

  2. Freeze until solid.

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 + syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Cream + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Syrup + nutstop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together168 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + nutstop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,624 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the cream as they cook, giving the ice cream a rich, smooth body.
Cream
Fat gives the ice cream its richness and a soft, creamy texture after freezing.
Syrup
Sugar sweetens the base and keeps the frozen ice cream softer rather than rock hard.
Barcelona nuts
Roasting develops a deep, toasted flavour that gives the ice cream its burnt filbert taste.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it thickens. The egg base must thicken without curdling. Heat that is too high or too long can scramble the eggs, so cook gently and stop once it coats a spoon.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

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