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Ice Cream

A simple ice cream made by heating milk, adding corn starch, boiling, cooling, and mixing in eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Ice Cream

Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the milk in a dish set in hot water.

  2. Stir in the corn starch mixed smooth in a little of the milk.

  3. Let it boil for 1-2 minutes.

  4. Remove from the stove and cool.

  5. Stir in the eggs.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  3. Egg + corntop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens and the eggs enrich.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it heats and boils, giving the mixture body.
Eggs
Add richness and help the mixture set and turn creamy as it cools.

The step that matters

Let it boil for 1-2 minutes. Cornstarch only reaches its full thickening power once the mixture boils. Stopping early leaves it thin and grainy, and stirring keeps it smooth so it does not scorch on the bottom.

“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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