Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓
Strawberry Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the strawberries
Sprinkle sugar over strawberries and mash them.
Let stand for 30 minutes until sugar dissolves.
Extract the juice
Prepare ice and pack the freezer.
Place berries in a large square of cheesecloth over a bowl and squeeze to extract juice.
Empty pulp and seeds into a pan and gradually pour in milk. Mix well to separate pulp from seeds.
Squeeze again until the cloth is dry, leaving only seeds.
Finish and freeze
Add cream to the juice, adjusting the amount from 1 cup to 3 pints, and sweeten to taste.
Freeze as usual.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Strawberries
- Provide the main flavour and juice that gives the ice cream its fruit character.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the berries and helps draw out their juice while dissolving.
- Milk
- Adds creaminess and helps lift the pulp away from the seeds.
- Cream
- Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture that resists iciness.
The step that matters
Squeezing the pulp through cheesecloth. Squeezing until the cloth is dry leaves only seeds behind, which keeps the ice cream smooth. Pressing too little leaves pulp that makes the texture grainy, while pressing too hard can push seeds through.
“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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