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Milanese Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream flavored with sherry and crushed Naples biscuits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Milanese Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the cream and sugar until well combined.

  2. Add the crushed Naples biscuits and milk to the mixture.

  3. Pour everything into a saucepan and stir over medium heat until thickened like custard.

Finish and freeze

  1. Strain the mixture through a sieve to remove any lumps.

  2. Once cooled, stir in the sherry wine and freeze in a mold.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Cream + biscuittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Biscuit + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard base as they set with gentle heat, giving body and richness.
Heavy cream
Adds fat, which makes the frozen ice cream smooth and rich rather than icy.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer when frozen.
Naples biscuits
Crushed biscuits add flavor and a little body to the custard base.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard over medium heat. Egg yolks thicken as they heat but can scramble if overheated, leaving lumps. Stirring steadily and then straining, as the record notes, keeps the base smooth.

“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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