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Drink

Violet Sherbet

A chilled sweet beverage made with gelatin, lemon juice, grape juice, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and grape are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,412 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Violet Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil sugar and water for 5 minutes.

  2. Add gelatin mixed with lemon juice.

  3. Cool the mixture, then add grape juice and freeze.

Finish and set

  1. Once frozen, stir in egg whites and powdered sugar.

  2. Repack and let stand for 2 hours.

  3. Garnish with a few candied violets if desired.

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.

  1. Lemon + grapetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,412 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + grapetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when frozen and served.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and keeps the frozen texture soft rather than hard.
Egg whites
Add air and a lighter, fluffier texture to the frozen mixture.
Grape juice
Provides the main fruit flavour and the violet colour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the flavour.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves smoothly into the partly frozen base.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg whites once frozen. Egg whites trap air and lighten the texture. If the mixture is fully solid, they cannot blend in evenly, and if it is still liquid, they will not hold their volume.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, 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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