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 ↓
Lemon Water Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil the sugar and water together.
Remove the yellow rind from 3 lemons and the orange, then add to the syrup and boil for 5 minutes.
Let the syrup cool.
Finish and freeze
Juice the orange and lemons, then add the juice to the cooled syrup.
Strain the mixture through a cloth 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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Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Lemon and sugar 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 ice and, dissolved in water, forms the syrup base.
- Lemons
- Provide the main acidity and bright lemon flavor.
- Orange
- Adds aromatic citrus flavor, with its rind boiled into the syrup.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar and forms the liquid base of the ice.
The step that matters
Let the syrup cool before adding the juice. Adding juice to hot syrup can dull the fresh citrus flavor and alter its balance. Fully cooling the syrup keeps the lemon aroma bright and lets the mixture freeze evenly.
“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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