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Dessert

Milk Sherbet

Milk Sherbet is a chilled dessert made from milk, lemon, sugar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Milk Sherbet

Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Milk Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil the milk with the lemon rind and sugar until combined.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

Freeze and finish

  1. Pour it into a freezer and half freeze.

  2. Add the egg whites and lemon juice.

  3. Mix in more sugar to taste, then stir well.

  4. Freeze until fully set.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

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

Milk
Provides body and creaminess, with fat and milk solids giving a rich, smooth texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the sherbet softer when frozen.
Egg whites
Add protein that helps give the frozen dessert a lighter, more delicate structure.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour that balances the sweetness of the milk and sugar.
Lemon rind
Contributes aromatic lemon oils that scent the milk as it boils.

The step that matters

Half freezing before adding the egg whites and lemon juice. A partly frozen mixture stays smooth and lets the added ingredients blend evenly. Freezing it slowly in stages helps keep ice crystals small, so the finished sherbet is less grainy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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