Name: Fruit Ice Cream
Ingredients: 2 cups fruit juice or 3 cups crushed fruit; 1 quart heavy cream; 2 cups sugar; 2 tablespoons lemon juice (for frozen fruit or water ice)

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 ↓

Fruit Ice Cream

Ingredients

2 cups fruit juice or 3 cups crushed fruit
1 quart heavy cream
2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice (for frozen fruit or water ice)

Directions

Make the base

Combine fruit juice or crushed fruit with heavy cream and sugar in a large bowl, then mix until the sugar is dissolved.

Churn

Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer's instructions.
For frozen fruit or water ice, replace cream with water and add lemon juice before churning.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,640 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Heavy cream: Adds fat, which makes the churned ice cream rich and smooth in texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the mixture and keeps the churned ice cream softer by limiting large ice crystals.
Fruit juice or crushed fruit: Provides the main fruit flavor and moisture for the base.