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 ↓
Philadelphia Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Mix sugar and flavoring with cream until sugar is dissolved, then strain into a freezer.
Whip cream until you have 1 quart of froth.
Mix sugar and flavoring with unwhipped cream, strain into freezer, and when partly frozen, add whipped cream and freeze until stiff.
Heat cream in a double boiler until scalding hot, melt sugar in it, and when cold, add flavoring.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cream
- Provides the fat and body that make the ice cream rich and smooth, and whipping it adds air.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the mixture and keeps the ice cream from freezing rock hard.
- Flavoring
- Supplies the aroma and taste that define the finished ice cream.
The step that matters
Adding the whipped cream when partly frozen. Whipped cream folded into a base that is already partly frozen keeps its air, because ice crystals help hold the foam. Added too early or to a fully liquid base, the air escapes and the ice cream turns dense.
“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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