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Dessert

Country Ice Cream

A homemade ice cream made by cooling a milk and egg mixture in a salt and ice bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 553 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Country Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a pot, stirring to prevent burning.

  2. If using, stir in cornstarch or arrowroot to thicken.

  3. Beat the eggs in a bowl and pour the scalding milk over them, stirring well.

  4. Once cooled, add sugar, lemon essence or vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt.

Freeze

  1. Pour the mixture into a deep tin pail or can that holds about 3 quarts.

  2. Cover the can and place it in a larger water pail.

  3. Pack crushed ice around the can, mixing in 1 pint of salt, until it reaches near the top of the can.

  4. Gently move the can around by its handle, scraping off any frozen cream from the sides every few minutes.

  5. Continue for 15 to 20 minutes until frozen, then serve immediately or store in a cool place covered with a flannel cloth.

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. Arrowroot + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Forms the liquid base of the ice cream and carries the flavor and richness.
Eggs
Thicken the custard as they set and add richness and a smooth texture.
Cornstarch or arrowroot
Thickens the milk mixture, giving the finished ice cream a smoother body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream soft.

The step that matters

Scalding the milk and tempering the eggs. Pouring scalding milk too quickly into the eggs can scramble them. Stirring well while pouring gradually warms the eggs so they thicken the custard smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the arrowroot

The recipe marks arrowroot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, lemon):

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Arrowrootthe original
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, lemon. 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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