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Tutti Frutti Ice Cream

A custard ice cream flavored with grapefruit juice and candied fruits.

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

Tutti Frutti Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Cut the candied fruits into small cubes and soak them in the juice of the grapefruit for 2 hours.

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler, reserving a little cold milk to mix with the cornstarch to make a thin paste.

  2. Add the cornstarch paste to the hot milk and cook until there is no flavor of starch.

  3. Beat the eggs and sugar together until light, then stir in the hot milk and cook for 1 minute.

  4. Once the custard is cool, add the cream and vanilla extract.

  5. Strain if necessary.

Freeze and finish

  1. When the mixture is nearly frozen, stir in the French fruits along with the syrup from the grapefruit juice.

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

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

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

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

  4. Vanilla + grapefruittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together26 recipes

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

  5. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

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

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

Eggs
Thicken the custard as they cook and add richness to the base.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, body-rich base as it cooks.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, tender texture and a richer mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and softens the texture of the frozen ice cream.
Candied french fruits
Provide chunks of sweet, chewy fruit flavor throughout the ice cream.

The step that matters

Cook the cornstarch until no starch flavor remains. Cornstarch must be heated fully to gelatinize and thicken, and undercooked starch leaves a raw, floury taste. Cooking the custard gently keeps the eggs from curdling while the base thickens.

Swap the grapefruit

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

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Grapefruitthe original

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