Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Ice Cream

A chilled dessert made from cream, milk, eggs, chocolate, sugar, corn starch, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chocolate and coffee are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,497 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells buttery, creamy. The science ↓

Chocolate Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Stir the beaten eggs into the milk.

  3. Add the corn starch and powdered sugar.

  4. Heat the mixture until it comes to a boil, stirring constantly.

  5. Remove from heat once smooth and combined.

Finish and freeze

  1. Mix in the cream and vanilla extract.

  2. Taste and add more sugar if needed.

  3. Chill the mixture, then pour it into a freezer to 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. Chocolate + coffeetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Coffee + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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
Egg proteins thicken the custard as it heats and add richness.
Corn starch
Starch swells when heated, thickening the base so it is smooth rather than thin.
Whole milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs and starch thicken into a custard.
Cream
Adds fat, which gives the frozen ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the frozen texture by interfering with ice crystal formation.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Heating the custard. Stir constantly while heating. Eggs and starch thicken as the mixture heats, and without constant stirring they can scorch on the bottom of the pan or form lumps, leaving a grainy texture.

“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.

More chocolate ice cream recipes

Cake 5Candy 3 See all 177 →

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesCoffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCorn CakeCorn Cake90 recipes