Skip to main content
Dessert

Tea Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made by infusing cream with Old Hyson tea, sugar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Tea Ice Cream

Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Tea Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the tea

  1. Pour 1 pint of cream over 4 tablespoons of Old Hyson tea.

  2. Scald the mixture in a custard kettle or by placing it in a kettle of boiling water.

  3. Remove from heat and let it stand for 5 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture into 1 pint of cold cream.

Make the custard and freeze

  1. Scald the combined mixture again.

  2. When hot, mix in 4 beaten eggs and ¾ pound of sugar.

  3. Let cool and then freeze.

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.

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.

  1. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Tea + creamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Tea + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,204 recipes

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

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Old hyson tea
Gives the ice cream its main tea flavour as it steeps in the hot cream.
Cream
Carries the tea flavour and gives the finished ice cream its rich, smooth body.
Eggs
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving the ice cream structure and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and softens the texture so the frozen ice cream stays scoopable.

The step that matters

Scalding the eggs into the custard. Once the beaten eggs go in, the custard must be heated gently and not boiled. Too much heat can curdle the eggs, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth, thickened base.

“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 tea ice cream recipes

Green 5 See all 18 →

You might also like

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