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Dessert

Almond Cream Ice

A chilled almond-flavored custard dessert made with milk, whipped cream, and almond essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Almond Cream Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond base

  1. Blanch, chop, and pound the almonds smoothly, adding the orange-flower water to prevent them from oiling.

  2. Warm the milk and pour it over the almonds.

  3. Cover and let it sit while making the custard.

Make the ice cream

  1. Once the custard is cold, mix it with the almond mixture.

  2. Partially freeze the mixture.

  3. Add the whipped cream and almond essence.

  4. Add sugar if necessary.

  5. Complete the freezing process.

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. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Custard
Provides a rich, creamy base that gives the ice cream body and smoothness.
Whipped cream
Adds air and fat, giving a lighter, softer texture after freezing.
Almonds
Supply the main nutty flavour, and pounding them releases oils that carry it.
Milk
Extracts almond flavour from the nuts and adds moisture to the base.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.

The step that matters

Pounding the almonds with orange-flower water. Almonds can release their oil and turn greasy when pounded; adding orange-flower water helps keep them as a smooth paste, which keeps the final texture fine and even.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, almond, 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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