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Ice Cream, Vanilla

A vanilla ice cream made by heating milk, mixing with eggs and sugar, adding cream, and freezing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Ice Cream, Vanilla

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat 2 quarts of milk in a pot, stirring until it is about to boil.

  2. Remove from heat and beat the 7 eggs in a bowl.

  3. Stir the beaten eggs into the hot milk.

  4. Add 2 pounds of powdered sugar and mix well.

Finish and freeze

  1. Let the mixture cool, then stir in 5 quarts of 25% cream.

  2. Flavor to taste and freeze the mixture.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard and cream are built on.
Eggs
Thicken the base as they heat, giving the ice cream a smooth, rich body.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the base and softens the frozen texture.
25% cream
Adds fat for a rich, creamy mouthfeel and smoother texture.

The step that matters

Stir the beaten eggs into the hot milk. If the eggs are added too quickly or the milk is too hot, they can scramble instead of thickening smoothly. Adding the eggs gradually, while stirring, keeps the custard smooth.

“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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