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Dessert

Maryland Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream made with milk, eggs, sugar, flour, cream, and optional candied cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Maryland Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine milk, sugar, and flour in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Stir in the beaten eggs and continue boiling for 20 minutes.

Cool and finish

  1. Allow the mixture to cool.

  2. Once cool, add the churned cream and flavor to taste.

  3. For variation, mix in candied cherries if desired.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 their proteins set when heated, giving the base body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds richness and mild sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and softens the texture of the frozen result.
Flour
Thickens the mixture as its starch swells with heat, adding structure.
Cream
Adds fat, which makes the finished ice cream smoother and richer.

The step that matters

Stirring in the eggs and boiling for 20 minutes. Egg proteins thicken the base when heated, but if the mixture overheats or is not stirred, the eggs can scramble and turn grainy. Keep it moving and at a steady boil.

“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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