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Dessert

Vanilla Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream made with milk, cream, sugar, egg yolk, vanilla, and folded with beaten egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Vanilla Ice Cream

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 ↓

Vanilla Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk over a double boiler.

  2. Mix the corn starch with a little cold milk and stir it into the hot milk.

  3. Cook until it boils for 2 minutes, then add the sugar.

  4. Beat the egg yolk with a spoonful of cold milk and stir it in, cooking until thickened but do not let it boil.

  5. Remove from heat and strain through a thin cloth.

  6. Cool the mixture in a pan of cold water for a few minutes.

Finish and freeze

  1. Beat the egg white with ½ teaspoon sugar until stiff and fold it into the cooled custard.

  2. Stir in the cream and vanilla, then pour the mixture into an ice cream freezer.

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. 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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Corn starch
Thickens the milk custard so it becomes smooth and creamy when cooled.
Egg yolk
Thickens the custard and adds richness as it cooks gently.
Egg white
Whipped to stiffness, it folds in air for a lighter, softer texture.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the frozen ice cream a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
White granulated sugar
Sweetens the custard and lowers the freezing point, keeping the texture soft.

The step that matters

Cook the egg yolk gently without boiling. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, but if the custard boils they can curdle and turn grainy. Cooking only until thickened keeps it 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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