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Dessert

Neapolitan Ice

A layered fruit ice dessert made from raspberry, lemon, strawberry, orange, and pineapple ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Neapolitan Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ices

  1. Make each ice according to your preferred recipe.

  2. Once frozen but not too stiff, remove each ice from the container.

Layer and ripen

  1. Place a light ice layer in the mold or flat pan.

  2. Add a raspberry ice layer on top of the light ice.

  3. Add another light ice layer on top of the raspberry.

  4. Add a strawberry ice layer on top of the light ice.

  5. Finish with a final light ice layer on top.

  6. Pack the layers tightly by pressing down.

  7. Place the mold on ice and let it ripen for several hours.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, slice like cake.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Strawberry + pineappletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together433 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Raspberry + strawberrytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together815 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, sweet).

  4. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Raspberry + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together195 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Raspberry ice
Adds a tart, fruity flavour and a bold colour to one layer.
Lemon ice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the other layers.
Strawberry ice
Adds sweet, fruity flavour and a pink colour to one layer.
Orange ice
Adds citrus flavour and a sweet-tart balance to the layers.
Pineapple ice
Adds sweet, tropical flavour and a contrasting layer to the stack.

The step that matters

Remove each ice when partly frozen. Partly frozen ice is firm enough to hold its shape yet soft enough to press into tight layers. If too hard, layers crack and won't fuse; if too soft, the colours blend together.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raspberry, strawberry, orange, pineapple):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Blackberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, strawberry, orange, pineapple. 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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