Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Boil 1 quart of milk.
Dissolve 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in 2 tablespoons of cold milk.
Stir the cornstarch mixture into the boiling milk.
Cook for 5 minutes and then strain the mixture.
Finish and freeze
Add 2 cups of sugar and flavor to taste.
Let it cool completely, then freeze.
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.
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base and supplies fat and milk solids for a creamy texture.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the mixture body and smoothness.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
The step that matters
Stirring the cornstarch mixture into the boiling milk. Cornstarch clumps if it hits hot liquid unevenly. Dissolving it in cold milk first and stirring constantly spreads the starch evenly, so it thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.
“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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