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Dessert

Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream flavored with vanilla and blended with sliced bananas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Ice Cream

Why it works: Vanilla and banana are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,430 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Prepare the custard by heating the milk and whisking in the eggs and corn starch until thickened.

  2. Sweeten the custard to taste and add vanilla extract.

Freeze and finish

  1. Combine the custard with the heavy cream.

  2. When the mixture begins to freeze, stir in the sliced bananas.

  3. Continue freezing until fully set.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + bananatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

Heavy cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.
Eggs
Egg proteins thicken the custard and add richness to the base.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard and helps keep the ice cream smooth and less icy.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds dairy flavor and body.
Bananas
Add fruity flavor and sweetness, and fold in as sliced pieces for texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the bananas as the mixture begins to freeze. Adding sliced bananas too early lets them freeze hard and unevenly, while adding them once the base is partly set keeps them suspended and evenly distributed through the ice cream.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, egg, corn, sugar, vanilla. 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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