Name: Apple Sherbet
Ingredients: 2 quarts sweet new cider; juice of 2 lemons; 1 cup sugar

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 ↓

Apple Sherbet

Ingredients

2 quarts sweet new cider
juice of 2 lemons
1 cup sugar

Directions

Combine the cider, lemon juice, and sugar in a bowl and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
Freeze the mixture without heating.

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.

Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cider + lemontop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together986 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Cider + sugartop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,308 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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: Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the sherbet soft rather than rock-hard.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavour and balances the sweetness.
Sweet new cider: Provides the main liquid and apple flavour, and most of the water that freezes into ice crystals.