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Lemon Sherbet

A frozen lemon dessert made with lemon juice, water, sugar, and beaten egg whites.

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

Make the base

  1. Juice the lemons.

  2. Mix the lemon juice with cold water and sugar to create a very sweet lemonade.

  3. Beat the whites of the eggs until stiff.

  4. Stir the beaten egg whites into the lemonade mixture.

  5. Strain the mixture.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the strained mixture.

  2. Once it begins to freeze, add the beaten egg whites.

  3. Continue freezing until fully set.

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
Provide the acidity and bright lemon flavor that define the sherbet.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the sherbet softer when frozen.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they add airy lightness and a smoother, less icy texture.
Cold water
Forms the liquid base that dilutes the juice and sugar into lemonade.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg whites once freezing begins. Whipped whites are fragile and deflate if they are mixed into liquid that is too warm or too thin. Adding them once the mixture has partly frozen helps the foam stay airy and suspended, 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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