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Dessert

Lemon Ice

A frozen lemon dessert made with lemon zest, juice, boiled water, sugar, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Lemon Ice

Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine the lemon zest, lemon juice, boiled water, and sugar in a large bowl.

  2. Stir well until the sugar is dissolved and strain the mixture.

Freeze

  1. Let it cool, then freeze the mixture.

  2. Once it starts to freeze, add the sweet cream and mix well.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Lemons
Provide the acidity and bright flavor, and the zest adds aromatic oils.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and lowers its freezing point, keeping the ice soft rather than rock hard.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother, creamier texture.

The step that matters

Adding the sweet cream once the mixture starts to freeze. If the cream goes in while the mixture is still liquid, it stays diluted and separates. Adding it once ice crystals begin to form lets it blend in evenly and keeps the texture smooth instead of icy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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