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Drink

Orange Ice

Orange ice is a frozen orange beverage made with sugar, water, orange juice, rind, lemon juice, optional egg whites or gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Orange Ice

Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Orange Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Cook the sugar and water together until dissolved.

Add the flavourings

  1. Add the orange juice, grated orange rind, and lemon juice.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture in an ice cream freezer.

  2. If you don't have a freezer, pack the mixture in a vessel surrounded by salt and ice, covering it with paper.

Optional textures

  1. For a lighter texture, fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. For a firmer texture, dissolve the gelatin in the mixture.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sugar
Sweetens the ice and helps keep it from freezing into a solid block.
Orange juice
Provides the main flavour and liquid base of the ice.
Egg whites
Whipped into the mixture to add air and a lighter texture.
Gelatin
Sets the mixture to give a firmer texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to stiff foam; if they are deflated or overmixed, the ice loses its lightness. Folding gently keeps the air in.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Raspberryfits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, egg, gelatin. 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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