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Raspberry Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from raspberries, sugar, lemon juice, egg yolks, milk, and carmine.

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

Why it works: Lemon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Raspberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the raspberry base

  1. Combine raspberries, 6 oz. sugar, lemon juice, and ½ cup water in a porcelain-lined pan, then bring to a boil for 2 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve and set aside to cool.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with 2 oz. sugar in a bowl.

  3. Pour the boiling milk over the yolks, stirring vigorously.

  4. Return the mixture to the saucepan and heat gently until thickened, but do not boil. Set aside to cool.

Combine and freeze

  1. Mix the cooled fruit puree with the custard and add carmine for color.

  2. Pour into a quart mold and freeze until solid.

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. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Raspberries
Provide the main flavor and fruit puree that gives the ice cream its color and taste.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that the custard is made from and gives body to the ice cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and lowers the freezing point so the ice cream stays softer when frozen.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the raspberry flavor.

The step that matters

Heat the custard gently without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but if the custard boils they can scramble and turn grainy. Heating gently until it coats a spoon keeps it smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk. 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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