Name: Vanilla Ice Cream
Ingredients: 2 quarts Milk; 1 quart Cream; 3 pounds granulated Sugar; 6 Egg whites, well beaten; 4 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Vanilla Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

Combine the Milk and Sugar in a bowl and stir until dissolved.
Strain the mixture through a muslin cloth.
Add the Cream, beaten Egg whites, and Vanilla Extract to the strained mixture.

Freeze

Freeze according to your ice cream maker's instructions.

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.

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.

Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,301 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Sugar: Dissolves into the milk to add sweetness and soften the frozen texture.
Cream: Adds fat, which makes the ice cream rich and smooth.
Egg whites: Add protein and foam that help give the ice cream a light structure.
Milk: Forms the liquid base that the other ingredients are combined into.
Vanilla extract: Provides the main aroma and flavor of the ice cream.

“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.