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Dessert

Apple Water Ice

A frozen apple dessert made by boiling apples, straining, adding lemon juice and syrup, then freezing and churning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Water Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cut the apples into small pieces and remove the core.

  2. Boil the apple pieces in water until they reduce to a paste.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Add the lemon juice and sweeten with syrup.

  5. If the mixture is too thick, add a little water.

Freeze

  1. Pour it into a freezing pot and churn until frozen.

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. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Apple + syruptop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together742 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

Apples
Provide the bulk and main flavour, cooking down into a smooth pulpy base.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavour and keeps it from tasting flat.
Syrup
Adds sweetness to balance the tartness of the apples and lemon.

The step that matters

Boiling the apples to a paste. The apples must cook until fully soft and reduced, because any lumps or excess water will leave the frozen sorbet icy or grainy. Straining afterwards removes the remaining fibrous bits for a smooth texture.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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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