Name: Lemon Ice Cream
Ingredients: 1 lemon; 3 to 4 lemons (for juice); 1 cup syrup; 1 pint cream

Why it works: Syrup and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,964 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lemon Ice Cream

Ingredients

1 lemon
3 to 4 lemons (for juice)
1 cup syrup
1 pint cream

Directions

Prepare the base

Squeeze the juice from one lemon and three or four additional lemons.
Add ½ cup of syrup and 1 pint of cream to the lemon juice.
Mix everything together and pass it through a sieve.

Freeze

Freeze the mixture 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.

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.

Syrup + creamtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,964 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,235 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,640 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and cream 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

Lemons: Lemon juice adds sharp acidity and bright citrus flavour that balances the richness of the cream.
Cream: Cream supplies fat that makes the frozen mixture smooth and rich rather than icy.
Syrup: Sugar in the syrup adds sweetness and keeps the frozen texture softer.