Skip to main content
Drink

Orange Ice

Orange ice is a frozen beverage made from water, sugar, orange and lemon juice, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Orange Ice

Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Orange Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil water and sugar together for 10 minutes.

  2. Skim the mixture.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

Freeze

  1. Add the orange and lemon juice to the cooled mixture.

  2. Place the mixture in the freezer.

  3. When it starts to freeze, stir in the beaten egg whites.

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.

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.

  1. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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 syrup and lowers the freezing point so the ice stays soft and scoopable.
Orange juice
Provides the main flavor and acidity, along with liquid that forms the ice.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness and acidity that sharpens the orange flavor.
Egg whites
Beaten in near the end, they add air and a lighter, smoother texture to the ice.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg whites when the mixture starts to freeze. If the mixture is fully frozen, the whites cannot blend in evenly. Stirring too early lets them deflate or sink, so the texture stays dense rather than light.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, egg):

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, 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.

More orange ice recipes

Cream 53Italian Cream 4China Cream 3Seville Cream 3 See all 88 →

You might also like

Orange SyrupOrange Syrup47 recipesLemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesOrange Water IceOrange Water Ice28 recipes