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Dessert

Ice Cream, Without Cream

A frozen dessert made from milk, vanilla or lemon, egg yolks, and sugar, without cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Ice Cream, Without Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the vanilla bean or lemon rind in the milk, then remove the bean or rind.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks and heat until scalding hot, but do not boil.

  3. Stir in white sugar until very sweet.

Freeze

  1. Let it cool, then 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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base and supplies the creamy body of the ice cream.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and keeps the frozen texture softer by lowering the freezing point.
Vanilla bean or lemon rind
Flavours the milk with aroma, vanilla or bright citrus notes.

The step that matters

Heat the egg yolks until scalding, without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but past about 80°C they can scramble and turn grainy. Stopping at scalding hot thickens the custard smoothly without curdling it.

“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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