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Custard Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream made by heating cream with sugar, thickening with starch, adding eggs, cooling, then freezing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Custard Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Sweeten the cream or milk with sugar and add flavoring.

  2. Heat the mixture in a double boiler until it begins to boil.

  3. Mix the corn-starch or rice flour with a little milk until smooth, then stir it into the boiling mixture.

  4. Boil for a few minutes, then remove from heat.

  5. Gradually stir in the beaten eggs until well combined.

Cool and freeze

  1. Let the mixture cool completely, then freeze it as ice cream.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + corntop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Eggs
Thicken the custard as they set on gentle heat, giving the ice cream a rich, smooth body.
Corn-starch or rice flour
Thickens the hot mixture so it holds together and resists icy, grainy texture after freezing.
Cream or rich milk
Provides fat and liquid, giving the ice cream its richness and creamy mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer when frozen.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs. Eggs curdle if they meet very hot liquid directly. Stir them in gradually, off the heat, so the custard thickens smoothly instead of turning lumpy.

“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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