Name: Italien Orange Ice Cream
Ingredients: one-half pints best cream; 12 ounces white pulverized sugar; 2 teaspoonfuls orange extract; a pinch of salt; 6 oranges; 8 eggs; salt

Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Italien Orange Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

Combine the cream, sugar, orange juice, orange extract, egg yolks, and salt.
Mix the ingredients in a porcelain-lined basin and stir over fire until the mixture thickens.
Rub the mixture and pass it through a hair sieve.

Freeze

Place the resulting custard in a freezer to finish.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

240Calories

8 gProtein

11 gFat

29 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 5 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Orange	1 medium (131g)	62
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

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

By Margaret Brown. 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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,212 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cream + orangetop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,170 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Cream: Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the frozen custard.
Eggs: Egg yolks thicken the custard as it cooks and help it set smooth when frozen.
Sugar: Sweetens the custard and lowers its freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
Oranges: Supply juice that gives the custard its bright citrus flavour and acidity.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard over fire until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken from heat, but if they get too hot they scramble and turn grainy. Stir steadily over gentle heat and stop once the custard coats a spoon. Straining afterwards removes any small cooked bits.

Swap the orange

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Strawberryfits better
Orangethe original

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

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Italien Orange Ice Cream