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Dessert

Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made by blending arrowroot with milk, sugar, cream, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Ice Cream

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 ↓

Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Blend the arrowroot with the cold milk.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine mesh.

  3. Dissolve the sugar in the boiling milk using a double boiler.

  4. Pour the arrowroot mixture into the boiling milk.

  5. Stir gently to prevent lumps.

  6. Simmer until thickened.

Cool and freeze

  1. Transfer the mixture to a dish to cool.

  2. Once cool, stir in the cream.

  3. Add the flavoring.

  4. Freeze for about two hours.

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

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

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

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

  3. Arrowroot + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Arrowroot + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Bermuda arrowroot
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, creamy base as it simmers.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen ice cream.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the ice cream base.
Rich cream
Adds fat, which makes the ice cream richer and smoother.

The step that matters

Stir gently to prevent lumps. Arrowroot can clump when it meets hot liquid unevenly, leaving grainy specks in the base. Stirring gently while adding it to the boiling milk disperses the starch so it thickens evenly.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Sweet potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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.

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