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Dessert

Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from apricots, sugar, cream, ice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Ice Cream

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pare and stone the apricots.

  2. Scald the apricots.

  3. Beat them finely in a marble mortar.

  4. Add the sugar and scalding cream.

  5. Work the mixture through a fine sieve.

Freeze the custard

  1. Pour the mixture into a tin with a tight cover.

  2. Set the tin in a tub of crushed ice and a large quantity of salt.

  3. When the cream thickens around the edges, stir it.

  4. Return it to the ice until fully thickened.

Mold and serve

  1. Once frozen, remove it from the tin.

  2. Place it in a mold and cover the mold.

  3. Place it in another tub of ice and salt for 4 to 5 hours.

  4. Dip the tin in warm water.

  5. Turn it out.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Apricot + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Apricots
Supply the main flavor and fruit pulp that forms the body of the ice cream.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer and scoopable.
Scalding cream
Adds fat that gives richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stirring when the cream thickens at the edges. Stirring as the mixture starts to freeze breaks up forming ice crystals and keeps the texture smooth instead of icy. Leaving it unstirred lets larger crystals form.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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.

More ice cream recipes

Strawberry 208Vanilla 203Chocolate 177Cake 127Coffee 119Pineapple 104 See all 440 →

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