Skip to main content
Dessert

Nougat Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from a custard base, whipped cream, egg whites, vanilla, and chopped nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Nougat Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar, egg yolks, salt, and almond extract to make a custard. Cook until thickened, then strain and cool.

Prepare the whipped components

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the heavy cream until stiff peaks form.

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Fold and freeze

  1. Fold the cooled custard into the whipped cream, then gently fold in the beaten egg whites and chopped nut meats.

  2. Add the vanilla and mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

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. Almond + walnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

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

  2. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Vanilla + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and flavor to the base.
Heavy cream
Whipped to stiff peaks, it adds body and a light, creamy texture.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add airy lightness to the frozen mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and lowers the freezing point for a softer texture.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thickened. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can scramble them. Cook gently and stop once the custard coats a spoon, then strain and cool it fully before folding into the cream so the base stays smooth and does not melt the whipped cream.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipes