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 ↓
Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Beat the eggs until light and mix them with the cream and sugar.
Strain the mixture and pour it into the ice cream freezer.
Freeze
Crush ice finely and sprinkle coarse sea salt over it, packing it tightly around the freezer.
Stir the mixture until it is fully frozen.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
- Cream
- Provides fat and richness, giving the frozen ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer when frozen.
- Eggs
- Add protein and emulsifiers that help bind the mixture and give a smoother, richer texture.
The step that matters
Packing the ice and salt around the freezer. Salted ice lowers its temperature below the freezing point of plain ice, so the cream chills fast enough to freeze smoothly. Too little salt or loosely packed ice slows freezing and can leave the texture grainy or icy.
“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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