Why it works: Lemon and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Cherry Water Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Press the cherries with a wooden spoon through a hair sieve to extract the juice.
Pour the spring water over the dregs to extract more juice.
Make the mixture
Combine the cherry juice, syrup, cochineal, lemon juice, and essence of kernels in a bowl.
If using, fold in the egg white to create a meringue texture.
Freeze
Freeze the mixture in a mold until sufficiently frozen.
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.
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Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,235 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Syrup + eggtop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,995 recipes
Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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
- Red cherries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and the juice that forms the base of the ice.
- Syrup
- Adds sweetness and softens the texture so the ice freezes less hard.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the cherry flavour and balances the sweetness.
- Egg white
- Whipped into the mixture, it adds a light, airy meringue texture to the ice.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg white. Egg white must be folded gently so it keeps its air; overmixing deflates the foam and makes the ice denser and less light.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonthe original
- Raisinfits about as well
- Raspberryfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, egg. 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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