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Custard Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream made with cream, egg yolks, lemon peel, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Custard Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, whisk together the fresh cream and egg yolks until well combined.

  2. Add the lemon peel and place the mixture over gentle heat or in a hot water bath.

  3. Stir continuously until the cream begins to thicken.

  4. Remove from heat and add sugar to taste.

  5. Place the mixture in a bowl of cold water and stir for a few minutes to prevent curdling.

Freeze

  1. Strain the mixture through a sieve and pour it into a freezer.

  2. Churn according to your ice cream maker's instructions.

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

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and sugar 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

Fresh cream
Provides fat and richness, giving the frozen ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they heat and add richness and emulsifying power for a smooth base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the frozen texture so the ice cream stays scoopable.

The step that matters

Stir continuously while the cream thickens. Egg yolks can curdle if overheated, leaving a grainy texture. Gentle, constant stirring over moderate heat keeps the custard smooth, and cooling it promptly helps it set safely.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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