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New York Ice Cream

A large batch of ice cream made with egg yolks, sugar, milk, cream, condensed milk, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

New York Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a pan, mix 48 egg yolks thoroughly.

  2. Add 7 pounds of sugar and mix well.

  3. Stir in 2 gallons of milk and heat over steam until hot.

Finish and freeze

  1. Remove from heat and add 2 gallons of cream and 1 gallon of condensed milk.

  2. Add 3 ounces of vanilla, strain the mixture, and freeze.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + condensed milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cream + condensed milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together416 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard base and add richness and structure as the ice cream freezes.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and dilutes the richness of the cream.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, creamy texture.
Condensed milk
Adds concentrated sweetness and milk solids for body and a soft texture.

The step that matters

Heating the milk mixture over steam. Heat must be gentle and the mixture kept below simmering so the egg yolks thicken the base without scrambling. Overheated yolks turn grainy and curdled, which ruins the smooth texture.

“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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