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Dessert

Buford Sherbet

A frozen fruit and raisin sherbet made with water, sugar, raisins, figs, spices, citrus, and grape juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Buford Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup and fruit

  1. Boil water and sugar together to make a syrup.

  2. Finely chop the raisins and figs.

  3. Place the chopped raisins and figs in an earthen bowl.

  4. Pour the boiling syrup over the chopped fruits.

  5. Let it stand until cold.

Flavour and freeze

  1. Remove the cinnamon and cloves.

  2. Add the orange, lemon, and grape juice to the syrup.

  3. Freeze the mixture.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Fig + grapetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together323 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves into the water to make a syrup that sweetens the dish and softens the fruit.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy body to the frozen mixture.
Figs
Add sweetness and a soft, pulpy texture to the fruit base.
White grape juice
Adds liquid and fruity sweetness, helping the mixture freeze to a softer texture.

The step that matters

Let it stand until cold. The syrup must cool completely before it is combined with the juices and frozen. Adding warm liquid can slow freezing and cause the sherbet to become grainy or icy in an uneven way.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raisin, fig, cinnamon, clove, orange, lemon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Cranberryfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, fig, cinnamon, clove, orange, lemon. 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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