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Dessert

Orange Water Ice

A chilled dessert made with gelatin, powdered sugar, orange juice, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Orange Water Ice

Why it works: Sugar and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Water Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Soften the gelatin in the cold water for 20 minutes.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin in the boiling water.

  3. Add the sugar, juice of the oranges, and enough cold water to make a full quart of liquid. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Freeze

  1. Pour the mixture into a freezer.

  2. When partly frozen, fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites and finish freezing.

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 + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Orange + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a smooth, firm body as it chills and freezes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the ice and softens its texture by lowering the freezing point.
Oranges
Provide the juice that gives the ice its flavour and acidity.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add airiness and a lighter texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Fold them in only when the mixture is partly frozen. If it is too liquid, the whites deflate and sink; if it is fully frozen, they cannot blend in evenly, leaving a streaky, dense texture.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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