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Dessert

Gelatine Ice Cream

A chilled dessert made by combining milk, gelatine, sugar, lemon extract, and whipped cream.

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

Gelatine Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Soak the gelatine in ½ cup of cold milk for 10 minutes.

  2. Pour the soaked gelatine over 1 pint of boiling milk. Stir until well dissolved.

  3. Add the sugar. Stir well.

  4. Mix in the remaining cold milk.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

Finish and freeze

  1. Whip the cream until stiff.

  2. Fold the whipped cream into the cooled milk mixture.

  3. 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.

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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid so the frozen ice cream holds a smooth, firm texture.
Separated cream
Whipped, it adds air and richness, giving a light, creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the frozen texture so it is less icy.
New milk
Forms the main liquid base that the gelatine sets and the cream enriches.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine in hot milk. Gelatine must be softened in cold liquid first, then fully dissolved in hot milk. If it stays grainy or lumpy, it will not set evenly and the frozen texture will be uneven.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, 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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