Skip to main content
Dessert

Ice Cream Custard

A custard-based ice cream made with milk, eggs, cornstarch, sugar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Ice Cream Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Stir in the cornstarch mixed smooth in a little cold milk.

  3. Let it boil for 1-2 minutes, then remove from heat.

  4. Partially cool.

Finish and freeze

  1. Stir in the eggs and sugar.

  2. Add the rich cream and flavor.

  3. Freeze.

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

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

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and supplies milk proteins and sugars for flavor.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk as it heats and boils, giving the custard body.
Eggs
Add richness and a smooth, silky body to the custard base.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and lowers its freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
Rich cream
Adds fat, which makes the frozen result creamy and smooth.

The step that matters

Boil the cornstarch mixture for 1-2 minutes. Cornstarch granules only swell and thicken fully when the mixture reaches a boil and is held there briefly. Stopping early leaves the custard thin and starchy-tasting.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes