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Dessert

Ice Cream with Rennet

A cold dessert made by curdling milk with rennet, then adding cream, condensed milk, sugar, vanilla, straining, and freezing.

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 ↓

Ice Cream with Rennet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Warm 10 quarts of milk over a steam bath.

  2. Add ½ ounce of liquid rennet and heat until thick.

Finish and freeze

  1. Stir in ½ gallon of cream, 1 gallon of condensed milk, 10 pounds of sugar, and 4 ounces of vanilla flavor.

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

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

  4. Condensed milk + sugartop 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

Milk
Forms the main body of the custard base that the rennet thickens.
Liquid rennet
Causes the milk to coagulate and thicken when heated.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture.
Condensed milk
Adds concentrated milk solids and sweetness for body and creaminess.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point for a softer texture.

The step that matters

Heating until thick after adding rennet. Rennet thickens milk only at a controlled warm temperature. Overheating can make the curd firm and grainy, while underheating leaves the base thin. Watching for the point where it thickens keeps the texture smooth.

“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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