Why it works: Raspberry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,109 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓
Raspberry Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil 4 cups of water with 1½ cups of sugar for 20 minutes to make a syrup.
Cool the syrup.
Finish and freeze
Add 2 cups of raspberry juice and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice.
Freeze the mixture using three parts finely crushed ice to one part rock salt.
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.
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Raspberry + lemontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,109 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + raspberrytop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,101 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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
- Dissolves into the boiled water to form a syrup that sweetens the ice and softens its texture.
- Raspberry juice
- Provides the main flavour and colour of the ice.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the raspberry flavour.
- Rock salt
- Mixed with crushed ice to lower its temperature enough to freeze the mixture.
The step that matters
Freeze the mixture using three parts finely crushed ice to one part rock salt. Salt dissolved in the melting ice lowers its freezing point, so the brine gets colder than plain ice. Too little salt or coarse ice leaves the mixture under-frozen and slow to set.
Swap the raspberry
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon):
- Orangefits better
- Limefits better
- Vanillafits better
- Raspberrythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. 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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