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Dessert

Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream made with milk, cream, sugar, eggs, corn starch, and vanilla, then frozen.

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

Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Heat 1 quart of milk in a double boiler.

  2. Mix 2 tablespoons of corn starch with a little milk until smooth.

  3. Add the corn starch mixture to the boiling milk.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Strain the mixture.

  7. Cool the strained mixture.

Finish and freeze

  1. Beat 2 eggs.

  2. Mix the beaten eggs with 1½ cups of sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the egg‑sugar mixture to the cooled milk mixture.

  4. Stir in 1 pint of cream and 1 tablespoon of vanilla.

  5. Freeze the mixture 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. 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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture so the base becomes smooth and creamy when cooked.
Eggs
Add richness and help give the frozen ice cream a smooth, creamy body.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and softens the texture by lowering the freezing point.
Cream
Adds fat, which makes the ice cream rich and smooth rather than icy.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the other ingredients thicken and freeze.

The step that matters

Adding the cornstarch mixture to boiling milk. Cornstarch must be fully mixed smooth first and then boiled, because starch granules swell and thicken only when heated. Adding it lumpy or unboiled leaves the base thin or grainy.

“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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