Name: Ginger Ice Cream
Ingredients: 6 ounces preserved ginger; 1 lemon (juiced); ½ pound powdered sugar; 1 pint heavy cream

Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Ice Cream

Ingredients

6 ounces preserved ginger
1 lemon (juiced)
½ pound powdered sugar
1 pint heavy cream

Directions

Prepare the ginger

Bruise the preserved ginger in a mortar.
Pass the ginger through a fine sieve.

Make and freeze

Add the lemon juice, powdered sugar, and heavy cream.
Thoroughly mix the ingredients.
Freeze the mixture until solid.

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.

Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ginger + creamtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,137 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Preserved ginger: Provides the main flavour, with a sharp, spicy aroma.
Heavy cream: Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture that stays soft when frozen.
Powdered sugar: Sweetens the base and helps keep the frozen texture softer.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the ginger flavour.