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Dessert

Pistache Ice Cream

A chilled dessert made from eggs, milk, sugar, sherry, cream, and pistachio sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Pistache Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Scald the milk and sugar together in a saucepan until slightly thickened, but do not boil.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  3. Whisk in the eggs until well combined.

  4. Stir in the sherry and cream.

Freeze and serve

  1. Freeze the mixture and pack it for three hours before serving.

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 + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Cream + pistachiotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together634 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

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

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Enrich the custard base and help it set smooth and rich when frozen.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the sugar and eggs thicken into a custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
Cream
Adds fat, which gives the ice cream a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Sherry
Adds aroma and flavor, and its alcohol keeps the texture softer after freezing.

The step that matters

Scald the milk and sugar without boiling. Heating the milk and sugar gently thickens the base slightly. Boiling can scorch the milk and make the mixture grainy, so it should only be heated until just thickened.

Swap the pistachio

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Cocoafits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Pistachiothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, sherry, 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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