Skip to main content
Dessert

Neapolitan Ice Cream

A layered ice cream of vanilla, chocolate, and pistachio flavors.

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

Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Neapolitan Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a vanilla cream using 3 cups of cream, omitting the vanilla.

  2. When partly frozen, divide the cream into three parts.

Layer the mold

  1. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract to one part and pour it into a block mold packed in ice, smoothing it down to an even layer.

  2. To the second part, add 1 ounce of melted chocolate and layer it on top of the vanilla cream.

  3. To the third part, add ½ ounce of blanched and chopped pistachio nuts and a few drops of green food coloring, then layer it on top.

Freeze and serve

  1. Seal the mold joints with lard to make it tight, then pack it in ice and salt for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Cut the cream into slices and serve on lace paper.

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. Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Vanilla + pistachiotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together407 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Chocolate + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Forms the rich, fatty base that freezes into a smooth, creamy texture.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma that flavors the plain vanilla layer.
Melted chocolate
Adds deep flavor and a darker color to its layer.
Pistachio nuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavor to the green layer.

The step that matters

Layering when partly frozen. Cream must be partly frozen before it is divided and layered. If it is too liquid, the layers will blend together, and if it is fully hard, the new layers will not smooth onto it evenly.

“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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes