Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Strawberry Sherbet
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Mash the strawberries and sugar together, and let them stand for two hours.
Soak the gelatin in cold water just enough to cover it.
Add 1 pint of the water to the berries and strain the mixture.
Dissolve the gelatin in 1½ pints of boiling water.
Finish
Add the dissolved gelatin to the strained mixture and freeze.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,778 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Strawberries
- Provide the main flavor, color, and fruit body of the sherbet.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and draws juice out of the berries, softening them for mashing.
- Gelatin
- Gives the frozen sherbet a smoother, firmer body and less icy texture.
The step that matters
Fully dissolve the gelatin in boiling water. Gelatin only sets evenly when it is completely dissolved in hot liquid. Undissolved granules can leave gritty or rubbery specks in the frozen 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.
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