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Dessert

Claret Ice

A chilled dessert made with lemon juice, grated rind, sugar, claret wine, water, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar 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 ↓

Claret Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Juice the lemons and combine the juice with the grated rind, sugar, Claret, and water in a large bowl. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Freeze

  1. When the mixture is about to freeze, gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker or a suitable container and freeze until firm.

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 + sugartop 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).

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 mixture and lowers its freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer when frozen.
Lemons
Provide acidity and fresh flavour that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Whites of eggs
Beaten whites trap air, adding lightness and a smoother, airier texture to the frozen dessert.
Virginia claret
Adds wine flavour and some alcohol, which further lowers the freezing point and softens the texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. The whites must be folded in gently, just as the mixture is about to freeze, so the trapped air is not knocked out. Adding them too early or stirring vigorously deflates the foam and makes a denser result.

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.

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