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Dessert

Hokey Pokey Ice Cream

A cold dessert made by boiling milk, sugar, condensed milk, gelatin, and vanilla, then freezing and slicing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Hokey Pokey Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix corn starch with a little milk to form a thin paste.

  2. In a kettle, combine 1 gallon of milk and 8 lbs of sugar, and bring to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the corn starch mixture.

  4. Add 1 gallon of condensed milk and bring the mixture to a boil again.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in 3 gallons of milk and 4 oz of dissolved gelatin.

  6. Strain the mixture and add 2 oz of vanilla.

Freeze and pack

  1. Freeze the mixture, then pack into 1 quart bricks.

  2. Once frozen hard, cut each brick into 8 slices, wrap in white paper, and pack for sale.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Condensed milk + gelatintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Corn starch
Thickens the mixture into a smooth body that holds its texture after freezing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer and scoopable.
Condensed milk
Adds milk solids and sugar for a richer, creamier texture and flavor.
Gelatin
Stabilizes the mixture and helps it hold a smooth, firm structure during freezing.
Milk
Provides water and milk solids that form the creamy body of the ice cream.

The step that matters

Stirring the corn starch mixture into the boiling base. Corn starch must be heated in liquid to gelatinize and thicken. Adding it off the heat, as the method says, and stirring well keeps it smooth and evenly dispersed rather than lumpy.

“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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