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Pistachio Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from cream, milk, sugar, egg whites, pistachio extract, and powdered blanched almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pistachio Ice Cream

Why it works: Pistachio and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Pistachio Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine cream and milk in a bowl.

  2. Add sugar and mix until dissolved.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Flavour and freeze

  1. Stir in the pistachio extract and powdered almonds.

  2. Partially freeze the mixture before adding the nuts.

  3. Continue freezing until firm.

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. Pistachio + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  3. Cream + pistachiotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together634 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides fat that makes the ice cream rich and smooth.
Milk
Adds moisture and body, keeping the base lighter than pure cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping it softer.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they add air and lightness to the mixture.
Blanched almonds
Add body and nutty texture from the finely powdered nuts.

The step that matters

Partially freeze the mixture before adding the nuts. Adding powdered nuts to a fully liquid base lets them sink and settle unevenly. Partial freezing thickens the mixture so the nuts and folded egg whites stay suspended and distributed.

Swap the pistachio

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

  1. Pistachiothe original
  2. Hazelnutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Cashew nutfits less well

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