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Maple Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream made with maple syrup, egg yolks, cream, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Maple syrup and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 752 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Maple Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, bring the maple syrup to a boil over medium heat.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes, then remove from heat.

  3. Slowly pour the hot syrup over the beaten egg yolks, stirring constantly.

  4. Place the mixture over boiling water and stir until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Cool and freeze

  1. Strain the mixture and let it cool, stirring occasionally.

  2. Once cool, add the cream and vanilla, then freeze as usual.

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. Maple syrup + vanillatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together752 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Maple syrup + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together607 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,301 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

Maple syrup
Provides the main sweetness and the characteristic maple flavor.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving the ice cream body.
Cream
Adds fat, which makes the frozen ice cream smooth and rich rather than icy.
Vanilla
Adds aroma that rounds out and complements the maple flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the hot syrup into the yolks. Pouring hot syrup in slowly while stirring constantly tempers the yolks, so they warm gradually and do not scramble into lumps. Stirring the custard over heat then thickens it smoothly.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Pumpkinfits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against maple syrup, egg, 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.

More maple ice cream recipes

Sauce 4 See all 27 →

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