Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Heat ½ quart of milk in a double boiler until boiling.
In a bowl, mix egg yolks, flour, and sugar with the cold milk.
Stir the mixture into the boiling milk and let it cool.
Finish and freeze
Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the cooled mixture.
Add flavoring to taste and freeze.
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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base and provides fat and milk solids for a creamy body.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard and add richness through their fat and emulsifying proteins.
- Flour
- Starch thickens the hot milk mixture, giving the custard body and stability.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and softens the frozen texture by lowering the freezing point.
- Egg whites
- Beaten to stiff foam, they trap air that gives the ice cream a lighter texture.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg whites after cooling. The custard must be cool before folding, because heat would deflate the whipped foam. Fold gently so the trapped air stays in the mixture and the texture stays light.
“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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