Why it works: Cream and sugar 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
Prepare the flavouring
Mash 1 quart of strawberries very fine.
Sweeten the mashed strawberries.
Mash bananas.
Strain mashed bananas through a cloth.
Make the custard
Soak ¼ box of gelatin in ½ cup cold milk.
Heat the remaining milk and evaporated cream in a saucepan.
Beat the eggs until creamy.
Add 1½ cups sugar to the beaten eggs.
Beat the mixture again.
Add the hot cream mixture to the egg mixture.
Transfer the mixture to a boiler.
Stir the mixture constantly until it thickens.
Add the soaked gelatin to the mixture.
Add more sugar if needed.
Strain the mixture.
Flavour and freeze
Set the mixture aside to cool.
Add the sweetened strawberries to the mixture before freezing.
Flavor the mixture.
Freeze the mixture.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Banana + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,470 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Cream + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and milk 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
- Eggs
- Thicken the custard as they cook and add richness to the base.
- Cream
- Provides fat, which gives the frozen ice cream its smooth, rich texture.
- Gelatine
- Adds body and helps the frozen ice cream hold a smooth, stable texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
- Strawberries
- Provide fruit flavour and aroma to the mixture.
The step that matters
Stir the mixture constantly until it thickens. Egg custard can curdle or scorch if overheated or left unstirred, because the egg proteins set quickly once hot. Constant stirring keeps heat even so the custard thickens smoothly.
Swap the banana
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, milk, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits about as well
- Bananathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, milk, egg. 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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