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Vanilla Cream

A homemade vanilla ice cream made with cream, milk, sugar, salt, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Vanilla Cream

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Vanilla Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar until dissolved.

Churn and freeze

  1. Pour the cream into an ice cream freezer.

  2. Whip for a few minutes, then add the milk mixture and vanilla.

  3. Freeze using 3 to 4 measures of cracked ice to 1 measure of salt.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

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

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla 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

Cream
Adds fat, giving the ice cream a rich, smooth texture.
Milk
Supplies liquid and milk solids that form the body of the base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
Vanilla
Adds the characteristic aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Freeze using 3 to 4 measures of cracked ice to 1 measure of salt.. Salt lowers the temperature of the melting ice below the normal freezing point of water, so the cream mixture can freeze. Too little salt leaves the base slow to freeze and grainy, while the right ratio chills it evenly.

“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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