Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Ice

A frozen dessert made from almond milk, cream, milk, and orange‑flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Almond Ice

Why it works: Orange and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Almond Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond milk

  1. Pound the sweet and bitter almonds in a marble mortar, adding a few drops of water as needed.

  2. Once thoroughly pounded, mix in the orange-flower water and half of the milk.

  3. Strain the mixture through a cloth, squeezing tightly.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, boil the remaining milk with the cream, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.

  2. When the mixture thickens, pour in the almond milk and bring to a boil.

Cool and freeze

  1. Remove from heat and let it cool in a bowl or pitcher before pouring into a mold for freezing.

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. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

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

  4. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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 thickens into the creamy body of the ice.
Cream
Adds fat, making the frozen texture richer and smoother.
Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond flavour and body in the almond milk.
Bitter almonds
Add a deeper, aromatic almond flavour in small amounts.
Orange-flower water
Contributes a delicate floral aroma to the finished ice.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk and cream while it thickens. Constant stirring keeps the mixture from scorching on the bottom of the pan and helps it thicken evenly. Scorched milk proteins give off a burnt taste that cannot be removed later.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, almond. 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.

More almond ice recipes

Cream 33Burnt Cream 7 See all 4 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes