Name: Grape Water Ice and Sherbet
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; 2 cups water; Grape pulps from fresh grapes; Grape skins from fresh grapes; Meringue (optional for sherbet)

Why it works: Sugar and grape are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,490 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Grape Water Ice and Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

Boil the sugar and water for a few minutes.

Prepare the grapes

Press the grape pulps carefully from the skins.
Add both the skins and pulp to the syrup and cool.

Strain and freeze

Once thoroughly cool, rub the mixture through a sieve.
Freeze the strained mixture.
For sherbet, fold in the meringue before serving.

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.

Sugar + grapetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar: Sweetens the syrup and helps keep the frozen texture smooth and soft.
Grape skins: Add grape flavour and colour to the syrup as it cools.
Grape pulps: Provide the main grape flavour and juice for the sherbet base.
Meringue: Adds air and a lighter, fluffier texture to the sherbet.

“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.