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Dessert

Christmas Ice Cream

A chocolate ice cream flavored with raisins, sherry, candied fruit, and a brandy‑vanilla sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Christmas Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Combine raisins and sherry in a small jar with cherries, citron, and apricots. Mix well, cover, and let infuse for 12 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. Whisk egg yolks and powdered sugar over low heat.

  2. Gradually add brandy, ensuring the sauce does not boil.

Assemble and serve

  1. Freeze the chocolate ice cream.

  2. Drain the fruit and stir it into the ice cream when almost ready to pack.

  3. Fold in the whipped cream.

  4. Serve the sauce cold over the ice cream.

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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Sherry + apricottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together173 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently over low heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a creamy texture to the finished dessert.
Candied apricots
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness to the ice cream.
Malaga raisins
Soften during infusion in sherry, adding plump texture and sweetness.
English brandy
Adds alcoholic aroma and warmth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add brandy, ensuring the sauce does not boil.. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but scramble and curdle if they get too hot. Adding the brandy slowly and keeping the heat low keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, sherry, apricot, egg, sugar, brandy, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, sherry, apricot, egg, sugar, brandy, 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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