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Delmonico Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream made with egg yolks, cream, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Delmonico Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the cream in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and add half the sugar.

  3. Pour the hot cream over the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Return the mixture to the heat and cook until thick, stirring continuously.

  5. Remove from heat, add the remaining sugar, and stir until dissolved.

Cool and freeze

  1. Strain the mixture and let it cool.

  2. Once cool, add the vanilla and freeze the mixture.

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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Vanilla and sugar 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 custard as they cook and add richness and structure to the ice cream.
Cream
Provides fat for a rich, smooth texture that resists large ice crystals.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thick. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if overheated they can scramble and turn grainy. Stirring constantly and cooking gently keeps the custard smooth.

“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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