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Dessert

New York Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream made with milk, eggs, sugar, flour, cream, and optional nuts or figs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

New York Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Beat together the eggs, sugar, flour, and salt in a bowl.

  3. Add the boiling milk to the egg mixture.

  4. Cook the mixture in a double boiler for 20 minutes, stirring until smooth and then occasionally.

  5. Strain the mixture and let it cool.

Flavor

  1. Once cool, add the cream, flavoring, and additional sugar to taste.

Freeze

  1. Mix 1 measure of coarse sea salt with 3 measures of pounded ice.

  2. Pack the mixture solidly. Do not drain off the water.

  3. If desired, add nut meats or figs to the cream while freezing.

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
Set and thicken the custard as they cook, giving body and richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs and flour set into a custard.
Cream
Adds fat, which makes the frozen ice cream smoother and richer.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and keeps the frozen texture softer rather than hard.
Flour
Stabilizes the custard and helps it stay smooth when cooked.

The step that matters

Cook the custard gently in the double boiler. Eggs can curdle or turn grainy if overheated, so gentle heat and constant stirring keep the custard smooth before it is strained and cooled.

“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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