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Vanilla Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream made with cream, milk, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Vanilla Ice Cream

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Vanilla Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs until very light.

  2. Heat the milk and pour it over the beaten eggs, stirring well.

  3. Place the egg and milk mixture in a saucepan and stir over low heat until it thickens, but do not let it boil.

  4. Pour the mixture into a large bowl and let it cool completely.

Finish and freeze

  1. Add the cream, vanilla, and sugar to the cooled mixture and stir thoroughly.

  2. Pour the custard into an ice cream freezer and freeze until moderately hard, stirring occasionally to keep it smooth.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 they cook gently, giving the base body and a rich, smooth texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the eggs and sugar.
Cream
Adds fat, which makes the frozen ice cream richer and softer to eat.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream soft rather than rock hard.
Vanilla extract
Provides the main flavor, adding aroma to the sweet custard.

The step that matters

Cook the custard over low heat without boiling. Egg proteins thicken gently at low heat, but boiling can curdle them into lumps and leave a grainy texture in the finished ice cream.

“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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