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Dessert

Peaches Melba Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from cream, egg yolks, vanilla, powdered sugar, strawberry and raspberry syrups, and fresh peaches.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and strawberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,385 recipes. Both carry p-vinylguaiacol, which smells spicy, fruity. The science ↓

Peaches Melba Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a double boiler, heat the cream with the split vanilla bean.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and powdered sugar together until light.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the hot cream and stir until it thickens.

  4. Strain the mixture through a sieve and let it cool before freezing.

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the strawberry and raspberry syrups and bring to a boil.

  2. Dissolve the cornstarch in a little water and add it to the boiling syrup.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

Serve

  1. Peel fresh peaches and chill them on ice.

  2. Serve the syrup and peaches over the ice cream.

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. Vanilla + strawberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,385 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-vinylguaiacol (spicy, fruity).

  2. Strawberry + raspberrytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together815 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, sweet).

  3. Vanilla + raspberrytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  4. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar 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 as they set with heat and add richness.
Cream
Provides fat for a smooth, rich texture in the ice cream.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the frozen texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the fruit syrup as it heats, giving it body.
Strawberry syrup
Adds fruity sweetness and color to the sauce.
Raspberry syrup
Adds tart fruit flavor and color to the sauce.

The step that matters

Add the egg mixture to the hot cream and stir until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but if the mixture gets too hot it can scramble into lumps. Stirring constantly and heating slowly keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Raspberrythe original
  2. Bananafits about as well
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Blackberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, vanilla, sugar, strawberry, syrup. 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.

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