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Dessert

Ices Axd Ice Cream

A frozen dessert of custard made with milk, eggs, sugar, cream and vanilla, churned in a freezer packed with ice and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Ices Axd Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat 3 pints of milk to boil in a double boiler.

  2. Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs.

  3. Heat the yolks separately.

Make the custard

  1. Mix yolks with remaining milk, stir into boiling milk, and boil for 2 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat, add sugar, and let it dissolve.

  3. Strain the mixture while hot, cool it, then add cream and vanilla.

  4. Chill the custard and the unwhipped egg whites until needed.

Freeze

  1. Prepare ice by pounding it in a coffee sack until small.

  2. Set the freezer in a tub, secure the cover, and layer ice and salt around it.

  3. Fill the freezer two-thirds full with the custard mixed with whipped egg whites.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

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
Yolks thicken the custard and add richness, while whipped whites lighten the finished ice cream.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and dilutes the richness of the eggs and cream.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen ice cream.
Cream
Adds fat that makes the ice cream smooth and creamy rather than icy.
Vanilla
Adds aroma that gives the ice cream its characteristic flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the yolk and milk mixture. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if they get too hot or are added carelessly they can scramble and turn grainy. Stirring the yolks into the hot milk and boiling gently for the stated time lets the custard thicken smoothly.

“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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