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Burnt Almond Ice Cream and Orange-ice

A custard ice cream flavored with burnt almonds and orange, made by freezing a sugar‑almond custard and an orange syrup mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Burnt Almond Ice Cream and Orange-ice

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds, split them, and dry them in a 300°F (150°C) oven until light yellow.

  2. In a kettle, melt 1 pound of sugar without water until it turns golden syrup color.

  3. Add the hot almonds to the melted sugar, stir gently, and pour onto a platter to cool.

  4. Once cool, pound the candy finely and mix it into 3 pints of rich milk in a pot.

Make the ice cream

  1. Heat the mixture until boiling, then add the beaten yolks of 10 eggs and strain into a freezer.

  2. Freeze the custard as usual, beating well.

Make the orange ice

  1. For the orange ice, make a thick syrup with 1 pound of sugar and a little water.

  2. Peel and divide the oranges, adding the pieces to the boiling syrup.

  3. Grate the yellow peel of 3 oranges into a bowl, squeeze in their juice, and strain the syrup from the orange slices into the bowl.

  4. Add 3 pints of water and lemon juice to the orange syrup, strain, and freeze.

  5. Beat in the whipped egg whites and stir in the sugared orange slices before serving.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Melted to caramel for the almond flavour, and dissolved into syrup for the orange ice.
Sweet almonds
Provide the main nutty body and texture of the ice cream once pounded into the milk.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set smoothly as it is cooked and frozen.
Rich milk
Forms the creamy base that carries the almond flavour and freezes smooth.
Egg whites
Whipped and beaten in, they add lightness and airy texture to the orange ice.
Oranges
Supply the juice, peel and sugared slices that give the orange ice its flavour.

The step that matters

Melting the sugar to golden syrup. Sugar burns quickly once it turns golden, so it must be watched closely and removed at the right colour. Over-browned sugar turns bitter and dark, spoiling the almond flavour, while under-browned sugar gives little caramel taste.

“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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