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Dessert

Chocolate Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from cream, milk, eggs, sugar, and grated chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Chocolate Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Pour the hot milk over the beaten eggs and sugar.

  3. Rub the chocolate smooth with a little milk, then add it to the mixture.

  4. Return the mixture to the double boiler and cook until thick.

Finish and freeze

  1. Once cold, add the cream and freeze.

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

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

  2. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

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

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 their proteins set during gentle cooking, giving body to the ice cream.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer and smoother.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the chocolate and dissolves the sugar.
Cream
Adds fat, which makes the frozen ice cream rich and creamy rather than icy.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and, with its fat, adds richness to the custard.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thick. Egg proteins set as the mixture heats, so the double boiler must stay gentle and the mixture must be stirred. Overheating scrambles the eggs into lumps, while stopping too early leaves the base thin and 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.

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