Name: Lemon Ice Cream
Ingredients: 2 lemons; ½ cup loaf sugar; ½ pound powdered sugar; 1 pint cream; optional: 1 glass brandy

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Lemon Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemon sugar

Rub the rind of the lemons on some lumps of loaf sugar.
Squeeze the juice of the lemons into a bowl with the sugar.

Make the mixture

Add the powdered sugar and cream, and mix thoroughly.
Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Freeze

For Italian ice cream, add a glass of brandy before freezing.
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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,635 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,351 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 rind's aroma and the juice's acidity for a bright flavour.
Loaf sugar: Sweetens and absorbs the oils from the lemon rind, carrying its aroma.
Powdered sugar: Dissolves easily into the cream, adding sweetness and a smooth texture.
Cream: Adds fat, which gives the ice cream its rich, smooth body.