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Dessert

Ice Cream.— Very Nice

A homemade ice cream made with milk, sugar, eggs, lemon extract, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Ice Cream.— Very Nice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a tin pail, mix the milk, sugar, and beaten eggs together.

  2. Add lemon extract to the mixture.

  3. Place the pail in boiling water and stir until thick.

Finish and freeze

  1. Once cool, add the cream and freeze.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  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

Eggs
Their proteins set when gently heated, thickening the mixture into a custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken and the cream enriches.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen ice cream.
Cream
Adds fat, which keeps the frozen ice cream smooth and creamy.
Lemon extract
Adds a bright citrus aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Stir the custard over boiling water until thick. Egg proteins thicken the mixture when heated gently, but if the heat is too high or the stirring stops, the eggs can curdle or scramble. Steady stirring keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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