Name: Ice Cream Without a Freezer
Ingredients: four cupfuls of sugar; one quart of rich milk that has been heated almost to boiling; three pints of rich sweet cream; eight eggs very light; eight eggs beaten to a stiff froth; five teaspoonfuls of vanilla; three-fourths ice

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 Without a Freezer

Ingredients

four cupfuls of sugar
one quart of rich milk that has been heated almost to boiling
three pints of rich sweet cream
eight eggs very light
eight eggs beaten to a stiff froth
five teaspoonfuls of vanilla
three-fourths ice

Directions

Make the custard

Beat the yolks of eight eggs very light, add four cupfuls of sugar, and stir well.
Add one quart of rich milk, heated almost to boiling, little by little, beating all the while.
Add the whites of eight eggs beaten to a stiff froth.
Boil the mixture in a pail set inside another containing hot water. Boil for about fifteen minutes or until it is as thick as a boiled custard, stirring steadily.
Pour the mixture into a bowl to cool.
When quite cold, beat in three pints of rich sweet cream and five teaspoonfuls of vanilla, or other flavoring.

Freeze

Put the custard into a pail with a close-fitting cover and pack in pounded ice and salt (rock salt, not common kind), about three-fourths ice and one-fourth salt. Before putting the ice on top of the cover, beat the custard as you would batter for five minutes steady.
Put on the cover, then put the ice and salt over it, and cover the whole with a thick mat, blanket or carpet and let it stand for an hour.
Carefully uncover and scrape from the bottom and sides of the pail the thick coating of frozen custard, making every particle clear, and beat again very hard until the custard is a smooth, half-congealed paste. Do this thoroughly.
Put on the cover, ice, salt and blanket, and leave it for five or six hours, replenishing the ice and salt if necessary.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

339Calories

15 gProtein

19 gFat

26 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 5 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Vanilla	1 tsp extract (4ml)	12

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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.

Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,301 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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: Yolks and whites thicken the custard and give it a rich, set body.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and softens the frozen texture so it stays scoopable.
Milk: Forms the liquid base that is thickened into the custard.
Sweet cream: Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother, creamier mouthfeel.
Ice: Chills the custard so it freezes while being beaten.

The step that matters

Cooling the custard before beating in the cream. Adding cream or vanilla to a warm custard can thin it and slow freezing. Cooling it fully first keeps the base thick and ready to chill.

“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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Ice Cream Without a Freezer