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Dessert

Neapolitan Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream flavored with a choice of flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Neapolitan Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Separate the eggs and beat the yolks in a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar to the yolks and mix well.

  3. Scald the cream in a double boiler, then stir in the egg mixture while beating rapidly.

  4. Cook until the mixture reaches the consistency of soft custard.

Finish and freeze

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the yolk mixture along with the flavoring.

  2. Cool the mixture and then freeze it.

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

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

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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 base, and whipped whites add lightness and airy structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen ice cream.
Cream
Provides fat and richness, giving the ice cream a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard. Stirring the egg mixture into hot cream while beating rapidly keeps the yolks from scrambling. Cooking gently until it coats a spoon thickens the base smoothly, which sets the texture after freezing.

“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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