Skip to main content
Dessert

Nut Ice Cream

A caramelized sugar ice cream with thin cream, whipped cream, and chopped pecans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Nut Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Melt ½ cup granulated sugar in a saucepan over medium heat until golden brown.

  2. Add ⅓ cup boiling water and simmer for 10 minutes.

  3. Scald 1 pint of thin cream in a double boiler until hot.

  4. Stir in ⅓ cup sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt, and the caramel until the sugar melts.

  5. Set aside to cool, stirring often.

Prepare the pecans

  1. While cooling, remove any brown parts from the pecans.

  2. Rinse the pecans in boiling water.

  3. Dry the pecans thoroughly.

  4. Chop the pecans finely.

Freeze and ripen

  1. Once the cream has cooled, stir in 1 pint of whipped cream and the chopped pecans.

  2. Freeze until stiff.

  3. Remove the beater.

  4. Pack the mixture into a mold if desired.

  5. Let ripen for about 2 hours.

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. Cream + pecanstop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together706 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Sugar + pecanstop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,962 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Caramelized to form the base flavour and colour of the ice cream.
Thin cream
Provides richness and fat, giving the ice cream a smooth, creamy body.
Whipped cream
Adds air and lightness, making the frozen texture softer and less dense.
Pecans
Add crunch and a toasted, nutty flavour that contrasts the smooth base.

The step that matters

Melt the sugar until golden brown. Sugar darkens quickly once it starts to colour, and going past golden brown makes the caramel bitter. Stop at golden brown to keep a sweet, rich flavour.

Swap the pecans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Pecansthe 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes