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Strawberry Water Ice

A frozen dessert made from strawberries, sugar, lemon juice, and syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Strawberry Water Ice

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Strawberry Water Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Pass the strawberries through a sieve.

  2. Mix in the pounded sugar and lemon juice.

  3. Add the syrup and stir well.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture and then mold it.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and lemon 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

Strawberries
Provide the main flavour, colour and the water that freezes into the ice.
Pounded sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice softer and easier to scoop.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the strawberry flavour.
Syrup
Adds sweetness and liquid, helping the mixture freeze to a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Freeze the mixture and then mold it. Sugar and syrup lower the freezing point, so the mixture firms gradually into a tender ice instead of a hard, icy block. Freezing it fully and then molding it depends on that balance of sugar and water.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Pearfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup. 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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