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Dessert

Biscuit Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from soaked sponge biscuits, ratifeas, cream, egg yolks, lemon rind, bay leaves, powdered sugar, and brandy.

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 ↓

Biscuit Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Soak the sponge biscuits and ratifeas in the thin cream until soft.

  2. Mix the soaked biscuits and cream with the egg yolks, lemon rind, bay leaves, and powdered sugar.

  3. Heat the mixture in a saucepan, whisking until it thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and continue stirring until nearly cold.

Finish and freeze

  1. Strain through a fine sieve, add the brandy, and freeze according to your ice cream maker's instructions.

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. Biscuit + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Biscuit + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Biscuit + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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 when heated and add richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Thin cream
Provides fat and moisture, giving the ice cream a rich, smooth body.
Sponge biscuits
Soften in the cream and add body and a light, cake-like flavour to the base.
Brandy
Adds flavour and, as an alcohol, keeps the frozen ice cream softer and less icy.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but if the custard overheats it can curdle or scramble, leaving a grainy texture. Heat gently and keep whisking, then cool it promptly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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