Skip to main content
Dessert

Brown-bread Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream made with browned bread, sugar, milk, cream, sponge biscuits, and maraschino liqueur.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Brown-bread Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Combine the browned bread, sugar, milk, sponge biscuits, and cream in a saucepan.

  2. Stir over gentle heat until the mixture thickens like custard.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Finish and freeze

  1. Brown two more slices of bread in the oven, then crumble them into fine crumbs.

  2. Once the mixture is frozen, fold in the bread crumbs and maraschino liqueur.

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

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

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together319 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Biscuit + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the frozen ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers its freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer when frozen.
Milk
Provides liquid and milk solids that thicken with heat into a custard-like base.
Sponge biscuits
Add body and absorb liquid, contributing structure and a light, cake-like flavour to the base.
Browned bread
Contributes toasted, nutty flavour and aroma to the custard base.

The step that matters

Stir over gentle heat until the mixture thickens like custard. Heating the eggless milk and cream mixture too fast or too hot can scorch it or make it grainy. Gentle heat thickens it evenly and keeps it smooth.

“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.

More bread ice cream recipes

Brown 14Boston Brown 3 See all 10 →

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesBaking Powder BiscuitBaking Powder Biscuit119 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipes