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Dessert

Italian Cream Ice

A chilled dessert made from milk, sugar, egg yolks, praline pulp, spices, orange rind, and candied peel soaked in cognac.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Italian Cream Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, mix the milk, sugar, egg yolks, praline pulp, cloves, cinnamon, coriander, and orange rind.

  2. Heat the mixture on the stove, stirring until it thickens.

  3. Strain the mixture into a basin.

Finish and freeze

  1. Soak the candied peels in the cognac brandy, then add them to the mixture.

  2. Chill the mixture in a freezer until 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.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cinnamon + coriandertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 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

Milk or cream
Provides the fat and liquid base that gives the ice its creamy body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the base when heated and add richness through their fat and proteins.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and lowers the freezing point so the ice stays softer.
Praline pulp
Adds nutty, sweet flavour and blends into the base as a fine pulp.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture until it thickens. Egg yolks set when heated, so if the heat is too high or stirring stops, they can scramble and leave the base grainy. Gentle heat with constant stirring keeps it smooth and thick.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, almond, clove, cinnamon, orange):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, almond, clove, cinnamon, orange. 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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