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Custard Ice Cream

Custard ice cream made from milk, eggs, sugar, cornstarch, and vanilla.

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

Custard Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat 1 quart of milk in a pan set in boiling water.

  2. Beat 4 eggs in a bowl and add sugar to taste.

  3. Mix 1 teaspoon of cornstarch with a little cold milk until smooth.

Make the custard

  1. When the milk is nearly boiling, stir in the egg mixture and cornstarch.

  2. Continue stirring until the mixture begins to thicken.

  3. Add vanilla extract for flavor.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the eggs thicken.
Eggs
Thicken the custard as they set, giving it a creamy body.
Cornstarch
Stabilises the custard against curdling and helps it thicken smoothly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture as it thickens. Egg proteins set at higher temperatures, so the custard can curdle or scorch if it overheats or is not stirred constantly. Steady stirring spreads heat evenly and keeps the texture smooth.

“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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