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Delmonico Vanilla Cream

A vanilla ice cream made with cream, milk, sugar, egg yolks, isinglass, and vanilla powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Delmonico Vanilla Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Scald the cream.

  2. Dissolve the isinglass in the milk and add it to the cream.

  3. Pour the mixture over the beaten sugar and egg yolks.

  4. Add the vanilla powder and strain the mixture.

Freeze

  1. Cool the mixture and freeze it.

  2. Pack the ice cream for at least 3½ 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. 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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

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

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

Cream
Provides fat and richness, giving the ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.
Isinglass
Acts as a gelling agent that helps give the frozen ice cream a firm, stable body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream soft rather than rock hard.
Egg yolks
Act as an emulsifier and thickener, adding richness and a smooth custard-like texture.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture over the beaten sugar and egg yolks. Hot cream must be added gradually to the beaten yolks and sugar so the eggs warm slowly and do not scramble. Pouring too fast can curdle the custard and leave a grainy texture.

“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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