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Dessert

Ginger Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made with egg, sugar, cream, and preserved ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Ginger Ice Cream

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 ↓

Ginger Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Beat the egg in a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and cream, mixing well.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture until nearly frozen.

  2. Stir in the preserved ginger and freeze until fully set.

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.

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

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

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Ginger + creamtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Egg
Adds richness and body to the creamy base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and keeps the ice cream softer by lowering the freezing point.
Cream
Its fat gives a smooth, rich texture by limiting large ice crystals.
Preserved ginger
Provides the main flavour, aroma and chewy pieces throughout.

The step that matters

Stir in the ginger when nearly frozen. If the base is still liquid, the heavy ginger pieces sink to the bottom. If it is fully frozen, they cannot be folded in evenly. Nearly frozen is the point where the pieces stay suspended and distributed.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cream. 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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