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Dessert

Frozen Cherries

A chilled cherry custard flavored with liqueur, vanilla, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Frozen Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cherries

  1. Use the ripest and darkest cherries.

  2. Pit the cherries and combine them with 1 quart of sugar. Let them stand for 1 hour.

  3. Add the maraschino liqueur. Place the mixture in a freezer. Pack it in salt and ice. Let it stand for 6 hours.

Make the custard

  1. In a double boiler, beat the egg yolks until creamy.

  2. Add 1 pint of milk, 1 cup of sugar, and the vanilla extract or seeds. Stir until the sugar dissolves and the milk is hot.

  3. Pour the hot milk mixture over the beaten egg yolks, ensuring to remove any vanilla bean seeds.

  4. Let this mixture cool completely.

Freeze and serve

  1. Once cold, pour it into a freezer and freeze until it reaches a soft consistency.

  2. Remove the dasher and fold in the whipped cream. Repack the mixture and set aside until ready to serve.

  3. Just before serving, stir in the brandy to maintain a frothy texture.

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

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

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Vanilla + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together806 recipes

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

  5. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Cherries
Provide the main fruit flavour and colour, with sugar drawing out their juices.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they cook gently with the milk.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and airiness, giving the frozen dessert a smooth, light texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and softens the freezing texture by lowering the freezing point.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, carrying the egg yolks and sugar.

The step that matters

Cool the custard completely before freezing. Freezing a warm custard causes large ice crystals and a grainy texture, and it can also leave the egg yolks under-set. Chilling it fully first keeps the finished dessert smooth.

“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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