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Dessert

Neapolitan Ice

A layered frozen dessert made with strawberry or raspberry pulp, chocolate custard, vanilla custard, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Strawberry and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,385 recipes. Both carry p-vinylguaiacol, which smells spicy, fruity. The science ↓

Neapolitan Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Cream the egg yolks and 3 ounces of caster sugar together until well combined.

  2. Add the remaining sugar to the milk.

  3. Bring the milk to a boil.

  4. Pour the boiling milk onto the egg yolk mixture while stirring vigorously.

  5. Return the mixture to the heat.

  6. Stir until it thickens.

  7. Strain the mixture.

  8. Let the mixture cool.

Flavour and divide

  1. Dissolve the chocolate in 1 tablespoon of water.

  2. Mix the dissolved chocolate with one-third of the custard.

  3. Combine the fruit pulp with half of the remaining custard.

  4. Add carmine if necessary.

  5. To the last third of the custard, add the vanilla essence.

  6. Whip the cream slightly.

  7. Divide the whipped cream into three equal portions.

  8. Mix one portion into each preparation.

Freeze and serve

  1. Freeze each mixture separately.

  2. Pack the frozen mixtures in layers in a suitable mold.

  3. Cover the mold closely.

  4. Pack the covered mold in salt and ice for about 2 hours.

  5. Serve cut into slices.

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. Strawberry + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,385 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-vinylguaiacol (spicy, fruity).

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

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

  3. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard when heated and add richness to the frozen layers.
Milk
Forms the custard base that sets into a smooth, creamy body.
Cream
Adds fat and air, giving the frozen layers a light, smooth texture.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the custard and lowers the freezing point for a softer scoop.
Strawberry or raspberry pulp
Provides fruit flavour and colour for the pink layer.
Grated chocolate
Gives the chocolate layer its flavour and deep colour.

The step that matters

Stir until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken only gently and can scramble if overheated, leaving lumps. Stir constantly over low heat and stop once the custard coats a spoon, since it thickens further as it cools.

Swap the strawberry

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

  1. Coconutfits about as well
  2. Strawberrythe original
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, egg, milk, cream, sugar, vanilla. 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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