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 ↓
Coffee Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
In a saucepan, combine milk, sugar, flour, and salt to make a custard.
Cook over medium heat for about 30 minutes, stirring constantly.
Once thickened, cool the mixture and strain it.
Finish and freeze
Add the strong coffee and cream, mixing well.
Freeze the mixture immediately.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,202 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Cream + coffeetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,339 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Provides the liquid base and milk solids that thicken with heat into a custard.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen ice cream.
- Flour
- Thickens the custard as it cooks, giving the ice cream body.
- Cream
- Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture that resists large ice crystals.
- Strong coffee
- Supplies the coffee flavour and some liquid to the mixture.
The step that matters
Cook the custard with constant stirring. Flour thickens only as it heats, and it can scorch or form lumps on the bottom of the pan if left unstirred. Lumps and burnt flavour would carry into the finished ice cream, so the base must be stirred steadily until thickened.
“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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