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Dessert

Lemon Sherbert

A frozen dessert made from milk, cream, lemon rind, sugar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Lemon Sherbert

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 ↓

Lemon Sherbert

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Heat 2 quarts of milk and 2 quarts of cream to boiling.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of cornstarch with a little cold milk until smooth.

  3. Add the cornstarch mixture to the boiling milk and cream, stirring until thickened.

Flavour and freeze

  1. Take the rind of the lemons and simmer it with 1 pint of water and 3 cups of sugar.

  2. Combine the lemon mixture with the milk mixture and freeze.

  3. When partly frozen, fold in the beaten whites of 2 eggs.

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

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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

Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that gives the sherbet its body.
Cream
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture in the frozen dessert.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot dairy so the mixture holds together and freezes smoothly.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and lowers the freezing point for a softer texture.
Lemons
Supply the citrus aroma and flavour from the rind.
Egg whites
Folded in when partly frozen to add airiness and lightness.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites when partly frozen. Whites whipped into a mixture that is too liquid or too firm will not incorporate evenly, so the texture turns out dense or grainy. Folding at the partly frozen stage keeps the foam trapped for a lighter result.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, 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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