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Dessert

Boiled Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made by boiling milk, cream, corn starch, eggs, and sugar, then cooling and freezing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Boiled Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a large pot, bring the sweet milk and sweet cream to a boil.

  2. Dissolve the corn starch in a little milk.

  3. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sugar until well combined.

  4. Pour the corn starch mixture into the boiling milk and cream, stirring well.

  5. Add the egg and sugar mixture, stirring continuously until it comes to a boil again.

Cool and freeze

  1. Remove from heat and let cool completely.

  2. Once cooled, freeze the mixture.

  3. Add flavoring to taste before freezing.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  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

Corn starch
Thickens the milk and cream into a smooth, creamy base as it heats.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the custard as it is brought to a boil.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and softens the texture of the frozen cream.
Sweet cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg and sugar mixture while it comes to a boil. Eggs can scramble or curdle if they overheat in one spot. Constant stirring keeps the heat even so the custard thickens smoothly.

“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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