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Dessert

Eggless Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from milk, corn starch, sugar, heavy cream, and flavoring, without eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Eggless Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Scald the milk in a large pot.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix corn-starch with a little cold milk.

  3. Add the corn-starch mixture and sugar to the scalding milk.

  4. Boil until the taste of the corn-starch is gone.

Cool and freeze

  1. Let the mixture cool completely.

  2. Fold in the stiffly beaten heavy cream.

  3. Flavor with vanilla, rose, or chocolate.

  4. Freeze until solid.

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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Corn-starch
Thickens the milk mixture as it boils, giving the ice cream body and a smooth texture.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and richness, and when whipped, lightness and a creamy mouthfeel.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and keeps the frozen texture softer by interfering with ice crystal growth.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens and the cream is folded into.

The step that matters

Boil until the corn-starch taste is gone. Cornstarch must reach a full boil to swell and thicken fully, and boiling also cooks off its raw, floury taste. Stopping early leaves a pasty texture and starchy flavor.

“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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