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Dessert

Glace a LA Vanille

A custard-based vanilla ice cream made with milk, cream, egg yolks, vanilla pod, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Glace a LA Vanille

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk with the vanilla pod.

  2. Add the sugar.

  3. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.

  4. Gradually stir in the boiling milk.

  5. Return the mixture to the saucepan.

  6. Stir over low heat until it thickens, but do not boil.

  7. Strain the mixture.

Finish and freeze

  1. Let it cool.

  2. Add the cream.

  3. Remove the vanilla pod.

  4. Freeze the custard using your preferred method.

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

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

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

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

Vanilla and sugar 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set on gentle heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the yolks thicken into a custard.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, smoother texture in the frozen result.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until it thickens, but do not boil. Egg yolks begin to set around 70°C and curdle if overheated, leaving grainy lumps. Gentle heat thickens the custard smoothly, and straining afterward catches any small bits that form.

“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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