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Dessert

Plain Vanilla Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from milk, cream, sugar, corn starch, 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 ↓

Plain Vanilla Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a pot.

  2. Mix the corn starch with a little cold water until smooth.

  3. Add the corn starch mixture and sugar to the scalded milk.

  4. Cook until thick, stirring constantly.

  5. Remove from heat and strain the mixture.

Finish and freeze

  1. When cold, add the cream and vanilla.

  2. Freeze the mixture until solid.

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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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 that the thickened custard is built on.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the custard body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen ice cream.
Cream
Adds fat that makes the ice cream rich and smooth.
Vanilla
Adds the main aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Cook until thick, stirring constantly. Cornstarch only thickens once the mixture reaches a high enough temperature to swell its granules. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly, prevents scorching on the bottom of the pot, and stops lumps from forming.

“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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