Skip to main content
Dessert

Lemon Sherbet

A chilled lemon-flavored dessert made from sugar, water, lemon juice, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Lemon Sherbet

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 ↓

Lemon Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar and water for 20 minutes after boiling starts.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

Finish and freeze

  1. Add the lemon juice and slightly beaten egg whites.

  2. Freeze the mixture until solid.

Serve

  1. Serve with a Maraschino cherry on top of each glass of sherbet.

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.

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.

  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

Sugar
Sweetens the sherbet and lowers its freezing point, keeping the frozen texture softer.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavor that balances the sweetness.
Egg whites
Add body and help create a light, smooth texture as the mixture freezes.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the egg whites. Adding egg whites to very hot syrup can cook them unevenly and cause lumps. Cooling first lets the whites blend smoothly, giving a more even texture once frozen.

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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipesLemon Water IceLemon Water Ice55 recipes