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Dessert

Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from a mixture of milk, cream, sugar, arrowroot, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Ice Cream

Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Blend the arrowroot with the cold milk and strain through a fine mesh.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in the boiling milk in a double boiler.

  3. Pour the arrowroot mixture into the boiling milk, stirring gently to prevent lumps.

  4. Simmer until thickened, then transfer to a dish to cool.

Finish and freeze

  1. Once cool, stir in the cream and flavoring.

  2. Freeze for about two hours.

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

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

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

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

  3. Arrowroot + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Arrowroot + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Bermuda arrowroot
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy custard base as it heats.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen ice cream.
Rich cream
Adds fat, which makes the ice cream richer and smoother on the palate.

The step that matters

Pour the arrowroot mixture into the boiling milk, stirring gently to prevent lumps.. Starch clumps when it meets hot liquid before it is dispersed. Stirring steadily as you add it spreads the starch evenly so the base thickens smoothly.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Sweet potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Arrowrootthe original

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

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