Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Boil the milk in a saucepan.
Dissolve the cornstarch in the cold milk and stir it into the boiling milk.
Cook for 5 minutes, then strain the mixture.
Finish and freeze
Add the sugar and flavor to taste.
Let it cool completely, then freeze.
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.
-
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 creamy liquid base that the rest of the ingredients are mixed into and frozen.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the mixture body and a smoother texture after freezing.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer and less icy.
The step that matters
Stirring the cornstarch into the boiling milk. Cornstarch must be fully dispersed in cold milk first; added to hot milk without that, it clumps. Cooking it until the mixture thickens lets the starch swell and gelatinize, which gives the custard its body.
“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.
More ice cream recipes
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.