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Dessert

New York Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream made with milk, egg yolks, gelatin, sugar, cream, vanilla, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

New York Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the yolks of 4 eggs and dissolved gelatin.

  3. Add 2 cups of sugar and stir constantly until thoroughly hot.

  4. Cool the mixture, then pour it into a freezer.

Finish and freeze

  1. Add the beaten egg whites and 1 pint of rich sweet cream.

  2. Stir in 2 teaspoons of vanilla 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. 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they heat.
Gelatine
Helps the ice cream set smoothly and resist large ice crystals.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the freezing texture.
Rich sweet cream
Adds fat for a creamy, smooth texture.
Egg whites
Whipped air adds lightness to the frozen texture.

The step that matters

Stir the custard until thoroughly hot. Egg yolks thicken only when heated gently while stirred constantly. Overheating can curdle them, while underheating leaves the custard thin and unset.

“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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