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Dessert

Millefruit Water Ice

A frozen dessert made from lemon juice, syrup, water, preserved orange and lemon peel, angelica, and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Millefruit Water Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Squeeze the juice from the lemons into a bowl.

  2. Add the syrup and water.

  3. Freeze until rich.

Add the peel

  1. Cut the preserved orange peel, preserved lemon peel, and angelica into small pieces.

  2. Wait until the ice is like butter.

  3. Mix in the chopped sweetmeats.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

Finish and freeze

  1. Freeze again.

  2. Add a little cochineal for color, creating veins in the ice.

  3. Pour the mixture into molds.

  4. 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + angelicatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together189 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Orange + angelicatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together159 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Syrup + angelicatop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together111 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Provide juice that gives the ice its sharp, acidic flavor.
Syrup
Sugar lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice softer and sweeter.
Preserved orange peel
Adds sweet citrus aroma and chewy bits of flavor throughout the ice.
Preserved lemon peel
Adds tart citrus aroma and chewy texture against the smooth ice.
Angelica
Adds a herbal, aromatic note and chewy texture to the ice.

The step that matters

Wait until the ice is like butter. If the ice is still rock hard, the chopped peel will not mix in evenly. If it has melted too far, the peel will sink and the ice will lose its structure. A partly frozen, spreadable texture lets the pieces distribute evenly.

Swap the angelica

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, syrup, orange):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Angelicathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, syrup, orange. 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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Cream 4

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