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Strawberry Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from strawberries, powdered sugar, lemon juice, cochineal, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Strawberry Ice Cream

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 ↓

Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the strawberries

  1. Carefully pick and wash the strawberries.

  2. Using a wooden spoon, rub the strawberries through a fine sieve.

Make the mixture

  1. Mix in the powdered sugar and lemon juice.

  2. Add a few drops of prepared cochineal for color.

  3. Stir in the cream until the sugar is dissolved and the sweetness is to your liking.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture until solid.

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.

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.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Fresh strawberries
Provide the main flavor and fruity body of the ice cream.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves easily into the strawberry purée and cream.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the strawberry flavor.
Cream
Adds fat that makes the ice cream smooth and rich in texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream until the sugar is dissolved. Undissolved sugar grains stay gritty once frozen, and sugar also lowers the freezing point, so the mixture must be fully sweetened and smooth before freezing for a fine, scoopable texture.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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