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Dessert

Peppermint Candy Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made by mixing hot cream with crushed peppermint candy, egg, and sugar, then freezing and garnishing with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Peppermint Candy Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Dissolve the crushed peppermint stick candy in the hot cream.

  2. Cool the mixture and add the beaten egg and more sugar if needed.

  3. Freeze the mixture.

Serve

  1. Pack into a mold or serve in glasses.

  2. Garnish with whipped cream and sprinkle crushed peppermint on top.

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

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

  2. Cream + pepperminttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together632 recipes

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Peppermint + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,082 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Provides the fat and rich body that makes the frozen ice cream smooth and creamy.
Peppermint stick candy
Dissolves into the hot cream to supply the peppermint flavour and some sweetness.
Egg
Its proteins add richness and help give the custard base a smooth, stable texture.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding the egg. Adding beaten egg to very hot cream can scramble it. Cooling the base first lets the egg blend in smoothly and keeps the texture silky rather than grainy.

Swap the peppermint

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Peppermintthe original

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