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Philadelphia Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made with cream, vanilla, sugar syrup, and candied fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and pear match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 218 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Philadelphia Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Cook sugar and water together for 3 minutes to make a syrup.

  2. Cool the syrup.

Freeze the base

  1. Add cream and vanilla.

  2. Freeze the mixture until firm.

Add the fruit

  1. Add the candied fruits that have been softened in hot syrup or soaked in brandy or rum.

  2. Drain and cool the candied fruits.

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. Apricot + peartop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Vanilla + peartop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together334 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Vanilla + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together608 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  4. Vanilla + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Pineapple + peartop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides fat that makes the frozen mixture rich and smooth.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
Vanilla
Adds aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Drain and cool the candied fruits. Excess syrup or liquor left on the fruit adds water to the mixture, which freezes into large ice crystals and makes the ice cream icy and grainy. Cooling the fruit also keeps it from melting the cream.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Peachfits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, vanilla, apricot, pear, syrup. 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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