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Cranberry Frappe

A frozen beverage made from cranberries, water, sugar, lemon juice, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cranberry Frappe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cranberries

  1. Pick over and wash the cranberries.

  2. Combine cranberries and cold water in an agate saucepan.

Cook and strain

  1. Boil for 10 minutes or until soft.

  2. Add sugar.

  3. Boil for an additional 3 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture through a wire strainer and let it cool.

Finish and freeze

  1. Add lemon juice and beaten egg whites.

  2. Freeze using 2 parts ice to 1 part salt.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cranberries
Provide the tart fruit base and most of the flavour and colour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the tartness of the cranberries.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Egg whites
Whipped foam adds lightness and a smoother, airier texture to the frozen mixture.

The step that matters

Strain and cool before adding egg whites. Straining removes cranberry skins and pulp for a smooth texture, and cooling the mixture first keeps the heat from cooking or deflating the beaten egg whites before freezing.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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