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Dessert

Plain Vanilla Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from milk, cream, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 base

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan but do not boil it.

  2. In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar and corn starch until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the scalded milk to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

Whip and combine

  1. In another bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Fold the whipped egg whites into the cream.

  3. Combine the milk mixture with the whipped cream, add vanilla, and mix well.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture until firm.

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk base and add richness as they set gently with heat.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add airy lightness to the frozen texture.
Cream
Adds fat, which keeps the ice cream smooth and creamy rather than icy.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard and cream are combined into.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the texture softer.
Corn starch
Stabilises the custard base and helps it thicken without curdling.

The step that matters

Gradually add the scalded milk to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.. Adding hot milk too quickly can scramble the egg yolks. Pouring slowly while stirring warms the yolks gently so the custard thickens smoothly.

“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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