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Dessert

Sicilian. Cream Ice

A chilled dessert made from cream, sugar, egg yolks, orange zest, cedrati liqueur, diavolini, pistachios, and dried cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Sicilian. Cream Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, mix the cream, sugar, egg yolks, and orange zest.

  2. Heat the mixture on the stove until it thickens.

  3. Strain the mixture into a bowl.

  4. Stir in the cedrati liqueur.

Freeze and serve

  1. Freeze the mixture until stiff.

  2. Add the diavolini, shredded pistachios, and dried cherries, and mix well.

  3. Mold the ice.

  4. Serve.

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. Orange + pistachiotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Cream + pistachiotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together634 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 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 yolks
Thicken the custard as they heat and add richness to the frozen cream.
Single cream
Provides the fat and body that make the frozen ice smooth and creamy.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers its freezing point so the ice stays soft enough to scoop.
Orange zest
Adds citrus aroma and flavour to the custard base.
Cedrati liqueur
Adds citrus and aroma while its alcohol keeps the frozen mixture from freezing rock-hard.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but overheating can scramble them into lumps. Cook gently and stir constantly, stopping as soon as the custard coats a spoon.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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