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Dessert

Walnut Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made with walnuts, cream, sugar, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Walnut Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak walnut meats in a little sherry or wine for one hour if desired.

Make and freeze

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg, then add sugar and cream, mixing well.

  2. Freeze the mixture until it starts to set.

  3. Stir in the soaked walnut meats and continue freezing until firm.

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. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Walnut + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides fat and richness, giving the ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and lowers its freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
Egg
Adds richness and helps emulsify the mixture for a smooth, stable texture.
Walnut meats
Add crunch and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the creamy base.

The step that matters

Freeze until it starts to set before adding the walnuts. If the mixture is fully frozen first, the walnuts will not distribute evenly. Stirring while partly set keeps them suspended, and the walnuts should be well drained of soaking liquid so they do not make the ice cream icy.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, cream, sugar, egg):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Filbertfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, cream, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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