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Dessert

Sherbet

A chilled fruit dessert made from lemon juice, pineapple, sugar, corn starch, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons

  1. Juice the lemons and strain the juice.

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, mix the corn starch with cold water until dissolved.

  2. Pour the corn starch mixture into boiling water and cook until thick and clear.

  3. Stir in the sugar while the mixture is hot.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then add the strained lemon juice.

  5. Boil the lemon rinds in ¾ pint of water, then strain into the mixture.

  6. Freeze the mixture until it begins to set, then add the milk or 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.

  1. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Pineapple + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together885 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Lemon + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the base into a smooth, clear body as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the icy texture of the frozen mixture.
Lemons
Provide acidity and bright lemon flavour from juice and rind.
Milk or cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a creamier, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Freeze until it begins to set, then add the milk or cream. Adding dairy too early, or freezing it fully first, leaves ice crystals or a grainy texture. Partial freezing makes a smoother, creamier result when the dairy is stirred in.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pineapple, cream, corn, sugar, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, cream, corn, sugar, milk. 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.

More sherbet recipes

Pineapple 133Lemon 131Orange 76Strawberry 56Milk 53Grape 32 See all 12 →

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