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Dessert

Cinnamon Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made with cinnamon, sugar, egg yolks, milk, cream, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cinnamon Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix the powdered cinnamon, sifted sugar, egg yolks, and whole milk in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens.

Finish and freeze

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the thick cream and lemon juice.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold and freeze.

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. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard base as they set on gentle heat, giving the ice cream body and richness.
Thick cream
Adds fat, which makes the frozen ice cream smooth and rich rather than icy.
Sifted sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer when frozen.
Whole milk
Provides liquid and milk solids that form the custard base with the yolks.
Powdered cinnamon
Gives the ice cream its main spiced flavour and aroma.

The step that matters

Cook the custard gently while stirring. Egg yolks thicken at low heat but can scramble if overheated or left unstirred, leaving lumps and a grainy texture. Constant stirring and low heat keep the base smooth before the cream is added.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, sugar, egg, milk, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, sugar, egg, milk, cream. 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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