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Burnt Almond Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream flavored with roasted almonds and caramel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and gelatin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Burnt Almond Ice Cream

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Roast the almonds until moderately brown.

  2. Pound the roasted almonds with some of the sugar and a little cream to a smooth paste, or pound them with sugar only and sift.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs with the remaining sugar.

  2. Scald the milk, then slowly add the egg and sugar mixture, cooking until it thickens to a custard.

  3. Once the custard is cold, add the pounded almonds, flavoring, and cream.

  4. Dissolve the gelatin and add it just before freezing.

  5. Optionally, add a little caramel syrup to enhance the color.

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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

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

  5. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the milk base into a custard as they cook, giving body to the ice cream.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the frozen ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.
Gelatin
Stabilizes the frozen mixture, helping it hold a smooth texture rather than icing up.
Blanched almonds
Provide the main flavor, and roasting them deepens their nutty, toasted taste.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the base and helps keep the frozen texture soft.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard. Egg mixtures thicken around 160°F to 180°F and can curdle if overheated, so the milk should be added slowly and cooked gently until it coats a spoon.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Nutsfits less well

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