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Dessert

Orange Ice

A frozen dessert made from orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, and water, optionally with egg whites or gelatin.

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

Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Orange Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Place the sugar in a pan.

  2. Grate the rind of 2 oranges into the sugar and rub together well.

  3. Add the juice of 3 oranges, the juice of 1 lemon, and the water to the sugar mixture.

  4. Strain the mixture.

Freeze

  1. Freeze it.

  2. If making sherbet, add the beaten egg whites or gelatin to the mixture before freezing.

  3. If using egg whites, fold them in after the mixture has 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.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Sugar
Sweetens the ice and helps keep it smooth by limiting large ice crystals.
Oranges
Provide the main flavour, juice for liquid, and rind for aroma.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and sharpens the flavour.
Egg whites
Optional; when folded in after freezing they add lightness and a airy, sherbet-like texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites after freezing. Egg whites only give lightness if they are folded in after the mixture has frozen, so the foam is not collapsed or melted by the cold base. Folding gently keeps air trapped in the ice.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Raspberryfits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, egg, gelatin. 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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