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Ice Cream

A homemade ice cream made with milk, eggs, cornstarch, sugar, vanilla, and frozen with salt and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

  1. Heat the milk in a tin pail over boiling water until it boils.

  2. Stir in the cornstarch and boil for about 3 minutes.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and heat just until scalded.

  4. Stir in the sugar and vanilla.

  5. Strain the mixture through a wire sieve.

  6. Let the mixture cool completely, then pour it into a freezer.

Freeze

  1. Pack layers of coarse sea salt and ice around the freezer until full.

  2. Stir rapidly until the mixture hardens.

  3. Stir more gently until well frozen.

  4. Drain off excess water.

  5. Pack again with ice and salt.

  6. The ice cream will be ready to serve in about 2 hours.

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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

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

Milk
Forms the creamy base of the ice cream.
Eggs
Add richness and help thicken the custard as they heat.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk so the mixture sets smoothly when frozen.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point for a softer texture.

The step that matters

Heat the eggs just until scalded. Overheating beaten eggs can curdle the custard, leaving a grainy texture. Heat gently and stop once the mixture is scalded, just below boiling.

“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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