Name: Currant Ice Cream
Ingredients: ½ cup fresh currant juice; ½ pint cream; ½ cup currant jelly; juice of 1 lemon

Why it works: Currant and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,270 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Currant Ice Cream

Ingredients

½ cup fresh currant juice
½ pint cream
½ cup currant jelly
juice of 1 lemon

Directions

Sweeten and stir the fresh currant juice into the cream.
Alternatively, mix the currant jelly and lemon juice into the cream.

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.

Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,270 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,640 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Currant + creamtop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,829 recipes

Cream and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,640 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

Cream: Provides fat and richness, giving the ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.
Currant juice: Adds the main fruit flavour and tartness, along with liquid for the base.
Currant jelly: Adds concentrated fruit flavour and sweetness as an alternative to fresh juice.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the currant flavour and balances sweetness.