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Lemon Water Ice

A frozen lemon dessert made with lemon peel, syrup, juice, water, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lemon Water Ice

Why it works: Syrup and sugar 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 ↓

Lemon Water Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cut or rub the peel of two lemons into one pint of syrup.

  2. Add ½ pint of lemon juice and ½ pint of water; mix well.

  3. Let the mixture sit for 1-2 hours.

  4. Pass through a fine sieve.

Freeze and finish

  1. Freeze the mixture.

  2. Just before it sets, whip the egg whites with a little sugar and mix it in.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Lemons
Peel adds aromatic oils, and juice adds the sharp acidity that defines the flavour.
Syrup
Dissolved sugar sweetens the ice and lowers its freezing point for a softer texture.
Egg whites
Whipped whites add foam and airiness, making the frozen ice lighter in texture.

The step that matters

Mixing in the whipped egg whites. Fold the whites in just before the mixture sets. If it is already firm, they cannot blend in evenly, and if it is too liquid, the foam collapses and the texture turns watery.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, egg, sugar. 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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