Name: Orange Sherbet
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon gelatine; ½ cup cold water (for soaking gelatine); 1 pint cold water (for mixture); 1 cup sugar (adjust to taste); 6 oranges (or 1 pint orange juice); ½ cup boiling water

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 Sherbet

Ingredients

1 tablespoon gelatine
½ cup cold water (for soaking gelatine)
1 pint cold water (for mixture)
1 cup sugar (adjust to taste)
6 oranges (or 1 pint orange juice)
½ cup boiling water

Directions

Prepare

Soak the gelatin in ½ cup cold water for 10 minutes.
In a large pitcher, combine the sugar and 1 pint cold water.

Make the mixture

Cut the oranges in half, remove the seeds, and squeeze the juice into the pitcher.
Add more sugar if the oranges are very sour.
Dissolve the gelatin in ½ cup boiling water and add it to the mixture.

Freeze

Strain the mixture into a can and freeze.

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.

Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

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

Gelatin: Sets the frozen mixture to a smooth, firm texture rather than hard ice.
Oranges: Provide the juice, which gives the sherbet its main flavour and acidity.
Sugar: Sweetens the mixture and balances the sourness of the orange juice.

“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.