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Dessert

Barberry Ice Cream

A chilled dessert made from barberry jam, cream, lemon juice, and cochineal, frozen in ice and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,640 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Barberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine barberry jam and cream.

  2. Squeeze in the lemon juice and mix well.

  3. Add a little cochineal to color the mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture into a freezing pot and cover it.

Freeze

  1. Place the freezing pot in a pail surrounded by ice.

  2. Add a generous amount of salt on the ice and turn the pot for 10 minutes.

  3. Open the pot, scrape the sides, cover it again, and continue turning until thick.

Mold and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to molds and place them back in the pail with ice and salt for 45 minutes.

  2. Once the water rises to the top of the pail, dip the molds in water and turn them out onto a plate to serve.

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. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,640 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
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, creamy texture as it freezes.
Barberry jam
Provides sweetness and fruity flavor, and colors the base.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Salt
Mixed with ice, it lowers the ice's temperature so the pail gets colder for freezing.

The step that matters

Scraping and turning until thick. Scraping the sides keeps frozen crust from building up on the cold walls, and steady turning breaks up ice crystals, giving a smoother texture.

“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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