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Ratifia Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream flavored with ratafias and optional noyeau or maraschino.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Ratifia Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan over low heat, combine cream, milk, sugar, egg yolks, and 2 ounces of ratafias.

  2. Cook gently until thickened like custard, then remove from heat and stir in lemon juice.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then freeze it.

Finish and serve

  1. Once frozen, rub the additional 2 ounces of ratafias through a sieve and mix in with the frozen mixture.

  2. Add the noyeau or maraschino if desired.

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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 yolks
Thicken the custard base and add richness as they set gently over low heat.
Cream
Provides fat for a rich, smooth texture that resists large ice crystals.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
Ratafias
Add almond-like aroma and flavour; the second portion is sieved in for fresh flavour and texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard gently. Egg yolks set at a low temperature; if the mixture gets too hot it can curdle and turn grainy, so it should be cooked slowly and only until thickened.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, 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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