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 ↓
Fruit Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Scald the milk in a saucepan.
In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the sugar.
Pour the hot milk over the egg yolk mixture and stir well.
Beat the egg whites until frothy and fold them into the mixture.
Return the mixture to the saucepan and heat for a few minutes to thicken.
Let the custard cool, then stir in the cream.
Add fruit and freeze
Add the fruit, either cut into small pieces or mashed.
Pour the mixture into an ice cream freezer and pack with salt and ice.
Optionally, freeze the custard partially before adding the fruit, then place in a mold and pack.
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.
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Milk + bananatop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,470 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
-
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the custard and the whites, folded in, lighten the texture.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the sweetness and richness.
- Cream
- Adds fat, which makes the frozen ice cream smoother and richer.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
- Fruit
- Adds flavour, sweetness and acidity, and moisture to the frozen dessert.
The step that matters
Heating the egg and milk mixture to thicken. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the custard gets too hot it can curdle or scramble. Heat gently and stir until it coats a spoon, so the base turns smooth and thick.
Swap the banana
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits about as well
- Bananathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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.
More fruit ice cream recipes
You might also like
Banana Filling16 recipes
Banana Sherbet10 recipes
Banana Float9 recipes
White Cake431 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.