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Dessert

Boston Sherbet

A frozen raspberry dessert with lemon, maraschino liqueur, cherries, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Boston Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sherbet

  1. Combine the raspberry juice and lemon juice, and sweeten to taste.

  2. Stir in the maraschino liqueur and freeze the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Once frozen, mix in the chopped maraschino cherries.

  2. Fold in the egg white gently before serving.

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.

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. Raspberry + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  3. Raspberry + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Raspberry juice
Forms the flavorful liquid base that freezes into the sherbet.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the raspberry flavor and balances sweetness.
Maraschino liqueur
Adds aroma and flavor, and its alcohol keeps the frozen mixture softer and scoopable.
Maraschino cherries
Add sweetness, flavor and chewy pieces throughout the frozen sherbet.
Egg white
Folded in to add airiness and a lighter, frothier texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg white gently. Egg white traps air as a foam, which gives lightness. Vigorous stirring deflates that foam, leaving the sherbet dense and less airy.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Raspberrythe original
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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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