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Dessert

Chocolate Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made with milk, sugar, egg, chocolate, cornstarch, cream, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Chocolate Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, egg, chocolate mixture, and cornstarch.

  3. Cook until smooth and then let it cool.

Finish and freeze

  1. Once cooled, stir in the cream and whipped cream.

  2. Freeze the mixture until solid.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Thickens the custard base as it cooks, giving the ice cream body and a smooth texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the base during cooking, helping it stay smooth and resist icy separation.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers its freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer when frozen.
Cream
Adds fat, which makes the ice cream rich and creamy rather than icy.
Whipped cream
Adds air and fat, giving a lighter, softer texture to the frozen ice cream.

The step that matters

Cook until smooth. The egg and cornstarch must be heated enough to thicken the base without curdling. Cooking gently while stirring keeps the custard smooth, and cooling it fully before adding the cream prevents the cream from warming and separating.

“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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