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Dessert

Neapolitan Ice

A custard dessert flavored with strawberry or raspberry pulp, chocolate, and vanilla.

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 oz of castor sugar together until well combined.

  2. Add the remaining sugar to the milk.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Pour the hot milk mixture onto the egg yolks and sugar, stirring vigorously.

  5. Return the mixture to the heat.

  6. Stir by the side of the fire until it thickens.

  7. Strain it.

Flavour and combine

  1. Dissolve the grated chocolate in 1 tablespoon of water.

  2. Mix the dissolved chocolate with ⅓ of the custard.

  3. Let it cool.

  4. Combine the fruit pulp with the remaining custard.

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 and give it a rich, smooth set when gently heated.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the yolks thicken.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth, creamy texture.
Fruit pulp
Provides the main fruit flavour, colour and light acidity.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and a deeper, slightly bitter note.

The step that matters

Stir the custard by the side of the fire until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken at gentle heat but can curdle or scramble if overheated or left unstirred. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the custard smooth.

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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