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Lemon Sherbet

A chilled lemon dessert made with lemon peel, juice, sugar, water, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Lemon Sherbet

Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flavour base

  1. Shave off the peel from 2 lemons in thin, wafer-like parings, taking some of the lighter-colored rind.

  2. Put the parings into a bowl.

  3. Add the boiling water.

  4. Let it stand for 10 minutes, covered.

Make the juice

  1. Cut the remaining lemons in half.

  2. Remove the seeds.

  3. Squeeze out the juice.

  4. Add the lemon juice and sugar to the water and parings.

  5. When cold, strain through a fine strainer into a container.

Freeze

  1. Freeze.

  2. When half frozen, add the egg white.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lemons
Supply the bright acidity and lemon aroma that define the sherbet.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the lemon juice.
Egg white
Whipped into the half-frozen mixture to add lightness and a smoother, airier texture.

The step that matters

When half frozen, add the egg white. Adding the egg white too early, or when the mixture is fully frozen, makes it hard to fold in evenly. Half-frozen mixture has enough body to hold the white and trap air, giving a lighter texture.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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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