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Dessert

Emerald Ice

A frozen lemon gelatin dessert made with lemon juice, rind, sugar, gelatin, water, wine, and optional green coloring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Emerald Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Juice the lemons.

  2. Grate the rind of one lemon.

  3. In a bowl, combine the lemon juice, lemon rind, sugar, and cold water.

  4. Dissolve the gelatin in the cold water.

  5. Add the boiling water to the mixture.

  6. Stir in the wine.

  7. Add green food coloring if desired.

Freeze

  1. Pour the mixture into a container and freeze until solid.

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. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + gelatintop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,215 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

  5. Gelatin + winetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together176 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 into a firm, sliceable texture as it freezes.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and softens the frozen texture so it is less icy.
Lemon juice
Provides the main tart, acidic flavor.
Wine
Adds aroma and depth of flavor to the lemon base.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin in the cold water. Gelatin must be fully dissolved before the mixture is combined and frozen; undissolved granules leave gritty or rubbery spots and uneven setting throughout the dessert.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, gelatin, wine):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, gelatin, wine. 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.

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