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Delmonico Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream made with milk, cream, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Delmonico Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the eggs and sugar together until light.

  3. Gradually pour the hot milk onto the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Return the mixture to a double boiler and stir for 15 minutes until thickened.

  5. Let the custard cool.

Finish and freeze

  1. Remove the vanilla bean.

  2. Beat in the cream.

  3. Freeze the mixture.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Thicken the custard as they cook and add richness and structure to the frozen ice cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and helps keep the frozen texture softer and smoother.
Rich milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, carrying flavour and setting with the eggs.
Rich cream
Adds fat, which makes the frozen ice cream richer and creamier in texture.
Vanilla bean
Infuses aroma and flavour into the milk while it is scalded.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard over a double boiler. Eggs thicken when heated gently, but overheating can scramble them into lumps. Stirring constantly over indirect heat keeps the custard smooth and lightly thickened before it cools and is frozen.

“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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