Name: Mint Ice Cream
Ingredients: 1 lb old fashioned mint sticks; 1 qt cream; 1 pt milk

Why it works: Cream and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,399 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mint Ice Cream

Ingredients

1 lb old fashioned mint sticks
1 qt cream
1 pt milk

Directions

Soak the mint sticks in the milk overnight.
In the morning, pour in the cream and 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.

Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Mint + milktop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together458 recipes

Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).
Mint + creamtop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together594 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Mint sticks: Infuses the milk with mint flavour and aroma as it soaks overnight.
Milk: Carries the mint flavour during the overnight soak and forms the base of the custard-free mixture.
Cream: Adds fat and richness, giving the frozen ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.