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Dessert

White Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream made with milk, sugar, egg whites, arrowroot, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

White Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a pot, combine milk, sugar, egg whites, and arrowroot.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens to a custard-like consistency.

Finish the ice cream

  1. Allow the mixture to cool.

  2. Once cooled, fold in the whipped cream.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + arrowroottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  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

Milk
Provides the liquid base and dairy richness for the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the frozen texture.
Egg whites
Set and thicken when heated, giving the custard its body.
Arrowroot
Thickens the mixture when boiled, giving a smooth custard-like consistency.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and air, making the finished ice cream light and creamy.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it thickens. Egg whites and arrowroot need to reach a boil to thicken the base fully. Stopping early leaves a thin custard that may stay runny after cooling and freezing.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, egg, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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