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Dessert

French Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream flavored with vanilla bean, made with milk, egg yolks, cream, and Madeira wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

French Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald 1 pint of milk in a double boiler with a piece of vanilla bean.

  2. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs until frothy.

  3. Add ½ cup sugar and 2 tablespoons flour; mix until light.

  4. Pour the egg mixture into the scalded milk and cook in the double boiler for 15-20 minutes, stirring frequently.

  5. Add a pinch of salt and pour into a bowl previously wet with cold water.

Finish and freeze

  1. Once cold, add 3 cups of cream, ½ cup sugar, and 1 tablespoon Madeira wine.

  2. Remove the pit from the vanilla pod, scraping the seeds into the custard before freezing.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  4. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they cook and add richness to the base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the yolks thicken into a custard.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture in the frozen ice cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens the texture of the frozen ice cream.
Flour
Helps stabilize the egg mixture so it cooks without curdling as quickly.

The step that matters

Cook the custard gently while stirring. Egg yolks thicken at moderate heat but can scramble if overheated. A double boiler and frequent stirring keep the custard smooth before it is cooled and frozen.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Strawberryfits less well
  4. Lemonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, flour, cream, madeira wine. 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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