Skip to main content
Dessert

Grape Sherbert

A frozen grape dessert made with grape juice, sugar syrup, lemon or orange juice, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Grape and lemon 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 ↓

Grape Sherbert

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup by combining 1 ½ cups sugar and 4 cups water in a pot, then heat until the sugar dissolves.

  2. Allow the syrup to cool, then stir in 1 pint of grape juice and 1 tablespoon of lemon or orange juice.

Freeze and finish

  1. Place the mixture in the freezer and freeze until it is partly frozen.

  2. Once partly frozen, fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

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. Grape + lemontop 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

Sugar
Dissolves into the syrup to sweeten the sherbet and helps keep it smooth when frozen.
Grape juice
Provides the main flavour and liquid base of the sherbet.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in to add lightness and an airy, aerated texture.
Lemon or orange juice
Adds acidity that brightens the grape flavour.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites after partial freezing. The egg whites must be beaten and folded in only once the mixture is partly frozen. Folding into a mixture that is still liquid lets the whites deflate, and folding into a fully frozen mixture makes them hard to blend evenly.

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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes