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 ↓
Ice Creams and Ices
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Scald the cream and dissolve the sugar in it while hot.
Let the mixture cool, then pour it into a good ice cream freezer.
Pack and churn
Ensure the dasher is right side up and the can is properly adjusted.
Layer ice and salt in the freezer: 3 inches of ice, then 1 inch of salt, repeating until full.
Turn the crank slowly and steadily for 20-25 minutes until it hardens.
Remove the crank, wipe the lid, and take it off carefully to avoid salt falling in.
Remove the dasher and scrape it off.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pure cream
- Provides fat that makes the ice cream rich and creamy in texture.
- Granulated sugar
- Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer and scoopable.
- Ripe fruit or the best canned fruit
- Adds flavour, sweetness and aroma to the finished ice cream.
- Ice
- Chills the freezer so the cream mixture freezes.
The step that matters
Layering the ice and salt. Salt lowers the melting point of the ice, so the brine gets colder than ice alone and freezes the cream. Too little salt leaves the mixture soft; keep the layers even and fill the freezer fully.
“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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