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Dessert

Bourbon Cream Ice

A custard-based ice dessert flavored with almond milk, vanilla, and soaked fruits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 911 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Bourbon Cream Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a custard by heating 1 quart of milk with 1½ cups of sugar and 3 egg yolks until thickened.

  2. Make almond milk by blending 6 oz. sweet almonds and 12 bitter almonds with water, then strain.

  3. Soak the currants, candied orange peel, candied citron peel, dried cherries, and cut pineapple in ⅓ cup maraschino.

Make the ice

  1. Mix the custard with the almond milk and a few drops of vanilla essence.

  2. Freeze the mixture until stiff, then fold in the soaked fruits.

  3. Work the ice again and transfer it to a mold to set firmly.

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. Pineapple + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness to the frozen cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and softens the texture of the frozen mixture.
Sweet almonds
Provide the nutty, milky base flavor of the almond milk.
Maraschino
Soaks the fruits, adding sweetness and a liqueur aroma.

The step that matters

Freeze the mixture until stiff, then fold in the soaked fruits. Freezing to a stiff texture before adding the fruit keeps the fruit evenly distributed, because a fluid base would let the heavy pieces sink. Reworking the ice afterward breaks up ice crystals for a smoother, firmer set.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, almond, orange, pineapple, vanilla. 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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