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Dessert

Plain Ice Cream

A simple ice cream made with milk, cream, eggs, sugar, salt, and optional flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Plain Ice Cream

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 ↓

Plain Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk and cream together.

  2. Beat the eggs until very light.

  3. Mix the sugar and salt with the eggs, then add to the boiling milk.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a double boiler and cook for a while.

Flavor and freeze

  1. Once cold, add the flavoring and adjust sweetness if necessary.

  2. Freeze according to your ice cream maker's instructions.

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. 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. Egg + sugartop 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 of the custard and gives the ice cream its body.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture that feels creamy on the palate.
Eggs
Egg proteins thicken the custard as it heats and add richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and keeps the frozen ice cream softer by lowering its freezing point.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard in the double boiler. Egg proteins thicken the mixture when heated gently. If the heat is too high or the custard is left unstirred, the eggs can scramble and leave a grainy texture.

“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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