Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓
Lemon Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the flavour base
Juice the lemons and grate the rind of 3 lemons.
Juice the orange and grate its rind.
In a bowl, steep the orange and lemon rinds in the lemon juice for 1 hour.
Strain the mixture, squeezing out the rinds to extract all the juice.
Make and freeze the ice
Mix in the sugar until dissolved, then add the water.
Freeze the mixture in an ice cream maker, opening it 3 times to stir and beat the mixture.
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.
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Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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 main sour citrus flavour and acidity that defines the ice.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the ice and lowers its freezing point, keeping it softer and scoopable.
- Orange
- Adds sweetness and aromatic oils from the rind to the citrus flavour.
- Water
- Dilutes the juice and sugar to set the texture of the frozen mixture.
The step that matters
Freezing with stirring breaks. Stirring the mixture during freezing breaks up ice crystals as they form, giving a smooth rather than grainy texture. Opening the machine three times to stir and beat helps keep the ice fine and creamy.
“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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