Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓
Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard base
Boil the milk with the sugar.
Blend the corn starch with a little cold milk and pour it gradually into the boiled milk and sugar.
Boil together for 10 minutes in a furnace kettle.
Remove from heat and strain through a fine sieve.
When cold, add the cream.
Finish and freeze
Beat the yolks of the eggs and the whites to a cream, then add ½ pint of cream.
Mix this slowly with the other mixture and then put it in the freezer.
Flavor to taste and keep turning the freezer continuously.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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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 provides milk solids for a creamy body.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the boiled milk into a smooth custard as it cooks.
- Cream
- Adds fat, which gives a rich mouthfeel and a smooth texture.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help thicken and enrich the custard base.
- Egg whites
- Beaten to a cream, they add air for a lighter texture.
The step that matters
Boil the custard for the full 10 minutes. Cornstarch thickens only when its granules swell in boiling liquid, and cooking it fully removes its raw starchy taste. Stopping early leaves the base thin and floury.
“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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