Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓
Strawberry Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the strawberries
Remove the stalks from the strawberries and sprinkle the powdered sugar over them.
Bruise the strawberries with a wooden spoon and rub through a fine sieve.
Make and freeze the ice cream
Mix the strawberry juice with the thick cream, lemon juice, and cochineal.
Freeze the mixture in the usual way.
Serve
Serve in glasses with a strawberry on top.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,640 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Fresh ripe strawberries
- Provide the main flavour and the juice that gives the ice cream its colour and fruitiness.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and draws out juice, and dissolves easily into the mixture.
- Thick cream
- Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and softens the icy bite of freezing.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the strawberry flavour and balances the sweetness.
The step that matters
Rub the strawberries through a fine sieve. Bruising and sieving breaks down the fruit and removes seeds and fibres, so the juice blends smoothly into the cream. Leftover lumps or seeds would leave a gritty texture in the frozen result.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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