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Frozen Custard

A custard made from cream, sugar, eggs, and starch, boiled and then frozen.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Frozen Custard

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Frozen Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Sweeten the cream or milk with sugar and flavor to taste.

  2. Heat the mixture in a saucepan until it begins to boil.

  3. Mix the corn-starch or rice flour with a little milk until smooth, then stir it into the boiling mixture.

  4. Boil for a few minutes, then remove from heat.

  5. Gradually stir in the beaten eggs until well combined.

Cool and freeze

  1. Let the mixture cool completely, then freeze it like ice cream.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + corntop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Cream or rich milk
Provides fat and richness, giving the frozen custard a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen custard.
Corn-starch or rice flour
Thickens the mixture as it boils, giving body to the custard.
Eggs
Thicken the custard as they cook and add richness and smoothness.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs gradually. Adding eggs slowly into the hot mixture, while stirring, tempers them so they combine smoothly instead of scrambling into 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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