Name: Strawberry Ice Cream
Ingredients: 1 quart of milk; 1 tablespoon of cream; 1 quart of strawberries; 1½ cups of sugar; a pinch of baking soda

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 ↓

Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Combine the milk, cream, and 1½ cups of sugar in a bowl.
Mash the strawberries with your hands and mix them with a pinch of baking soda.

Combine and freeze

Combine the strawberry mixture with the milk mixture.
Freeze the mixture until solid.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

Milk: Provides the liquid base and moisture that freezes into the body of the ice cream.
Cream: Adds fat for a richer, smoother texture that feels creamy when frozen.
Strawberries: Supply the main fruit flavour, aroma, and colour, along with some moisture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer and less icy.

“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.