Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 ↓
Strawberry Sherbet
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the gelatine
Soak the gelatine in ½ cup cold water for 2 hours.
Add the boiling water to the gelatine and stir until dissolved.
Make the fruit and sugar mixtures
Mix in the sugar and lemon juice.
Pour 1 pint of cold water over the preserves and mash through a sieve, discarding the seeds.
Combine and freeze
Combine the fruit mixture with the sugar mixture, strain, and freeze.
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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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Gelatine
- Sets the frozen mixture and gives it a smooth, firm body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the sherbet and lowers the freezing point, keeping it scoopable.
- Lemons
- Add acidity that brightens the fruit flavour and balances the sweetness.
- Preserved fruit
- Provides the main strawberry flavour, colour and fruit pulp.
The step that matters
Dissolving the gelatine fully. Gelatine must be completely dissolved in the hot water before it is mixed in; undissolved granules leave gritty or rubbery specks and uneven setting in the frozen sherbet.
“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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