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Dessert

Violet Sherbet

A chilled dessert made from grape juice, lemon juice, sugar, gelatin, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,412 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Violet Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil sugar and water for 5 minutes.

  2. Add gelatine mixed with lemon juice.

  3. Cool the mixture, then add grape juice and freeze.

Finish and rest

  1. Once frozen, stir in egg whites and powdered sugar.

  2. Repack and let stand for 2 hours.

  3. Garnish with candied violets if desired.

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. Grape + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,412 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Egg whites
Whipped or folded in, they add lightness and a fluffy, airy texture to the frozen sherbet.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture and gives the sherbet a smoother, firmer body that holds together when served.
Sugar
Sweetens the sherbet and lowers the freezing point, keeping it softer and scoopable.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the flavour of the grape juice.
Grape juice
Provides the main flavour and the violet colour of the sherbet.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg whites after freezing. Egg whites whip up best when cold and are easily deflated if overmixed. Folding them gently into the partly frozen base keeps air in the sherbet, giving a lighter texture.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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