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Dessert

Tea Ice Cream

A chilled dessert made by scalding milk with tea, mixing with cold cream, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Tea Ice Cream

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 ↓

Tea Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse and strain

  1. Scald the milk with the tea.

  2. After 5 minutes, strain the mixture into the cold cream.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the mixture to scalding.

  2. Mix in the well-beaten eggs and sugar thoroughly.

Cool and serve

  1. Let it cool before serving.

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.

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.

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

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

  2. Milk + teatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Tea
Provides the main flavour and aroma, steeped into the hot milk.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the tea flavour into the custard.
Cream
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Eggs
Thicken the custard as they heat and help give the ice cream structure and body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and keeps the frozen texture softer by lowering the freezing point.

The step that matters

Mixing the eggs and sugar into the hot mixture. Hot liquid can scramble beaten eggs if they are added too quickly. Pour slowly while stirring constantly, so the eggs warm gradually and thicken the custard smoothly.

“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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