Skip to main content
Dessert

Oriental Ice Cream

A custard ice cream made with gelatin, lemon, milk, eggs, sugar, cornstarch, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Oriental Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin base

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in 1 pint of water.

  2. Add the lemon juice and 1 cup of sugar, stirring until dissolved.

  3. Pour the mixture into a large glass dish.

Make the custard

  1. Make a boiled custard by heating 1 pint of milk.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs with ½ cup of sugar and enough cornstarch to thicken.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the hot milk and cook until thickened.

  4. Let the custard cool.

  5. Pour the custard over the gelatin mixture.

Top and finish

  1. Whip the cream.

  2. Flavor the whipped cream with vanilla.

  3. Sweeten the whipped cream to taste.

  4. Spread the whipped cream over the top.

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. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

Gelatin
Sets the liquid base into a firm, sliceable dessert layer.
Eggs
Thicken the custard through protein setting when gently heated.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard by swelling with heat so it holds its body.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the boiled custard, adding richness and body.
Whipped cream
Adds a light, airy, fatty topping that contrasts with the firmer layers.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg and milk custard until thickened. Eggs can scramble if overheated, while too little heat leaves cornstarch unactivated and the custard thin. Stirring constantly over moderate heat keeps it smooth and properly thickened.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, egg, vanilla, 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes