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Dessert

Philadelphia Ice Cream

A cold dessert made from milk, cream, arrowroot, sugar, and vanilla bean.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 242 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Philadelphia Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil the milk and arrowroot until very thick.

  2. Strain and let it cool.

Finish the ice cream

  1. Add the cream and sweeten to taste.

  2. Flavor with the vanilla bean.

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. Arrowroot + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together242 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

Arrowroot
Starch that swells when boiled, thickening the milk into a smooth base.
Milk
Liquid base that the arrowroot thickens into a custard-like mixture.
Cream
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, creamy texture in the frozen result.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen ice cream.
Vanilla bean
Provides the main aroma and flavor of the finished ice cream.

The step that matters

Boiling the milk and arrowroot until very thick. Arrowroot starch only thickens fully once it has been heated to boiling and stirred. Stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan, and the mixture must thicken before the cream is added.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Arrowrootthe original
  2. Sweet potatofits about as well
  3. Potatofits less well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, 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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