Skip to main content
Dessert

Vaxilla Ice Cream

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Vaxilla 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 heated 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 it thickens without boiling.

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

  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, then 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.

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

Egg yolk
Thickens the custard and adds richness as it cooks gently.
Egg white
Whipped to stiffness, it adds airiness and a lighter texture to the ice cream.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk so the custard becomes smooth and body-rich.
Sweet cream
Adds fat for a creamy, smooth mouthfeel in the frozen result.
White granulated sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens the texture of the frozen ice cream.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolk without boiling. Egg yolk thickens as it heats, but if it boils it can curdle and turn grainy. Cook it gently and stop once it thickens to keep the custard 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.

More vanilla ice cream recipes

French 5Plain 5Diabetic 3 See all 203 →

You might also like

Corn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesCorn CakesCorn Cakes22 recipesGreen Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding14 recipes