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
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Mix the flour with a little of the cream and add it to half of the cream in a saucepan.
Cook the mixture over medium heat until thickened, then remove from the stove.
Finish and freeze
Stir in the sugar and the remaining cream, then let it cool.
Add the beaten eggs just before freezing and flavor as desired.
If not using fruit, reduce sugar to 2½ cups.
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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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Cream
- Provides fat and richness, giving the ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and keeps the frozen texture softer by lowering the freezing point.
- Eggs
- Add richness and a smooth, creamy body to the finished ice cream.
- Flour
- Thickens the cream base when heated, helping it set smoothly.
The step that matters
Cook the flour mixture until thickened. Flour starch only thickens fully when heated with liquid, so the mixture must be cooked until it visibly thickens. Mixing the flour with a little cold cream first helps prevent lumps, and stirring over medium heat helps prevent scorching on the saucepan base.
“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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