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Dessert

Orange-water Ice

A chilled dessert made from orange and lemon juice, infused rind, and syrup, formed into a compact ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange-water Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. Rub the rind of 4 oranges on sugar and scrape it off. Infuse this in a little warm syrup.

  2. Mix the orange juice, lemon juice, and infused syrup in a basin until it reaches 24 degrees on the syrup gauge.

Freeze

  1. Place the freezing pot in a pail surrounded by rough ice mixed with salt and a little saltpetre.

  2. Work the freezer by hand for 10 minutes, then detach the set ice from the sides with an ice spattle.

  3. Continue freezing and working the ice with the spattle until it forms a stiff, smooth, compact body.

  4. Transfer the ice into a mold and embed it in ice mixed with salt and saltpetre until ready to serve.

Serve

  1. Before serving, wipe off all salt with a cloth, dip the mold in cold water for a minute, wipe it dry, and push the ice out onto a lace paper on its dish.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Orange + syruptop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,179 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Orange juice
Provides the main flavour and sweetness, and its sugars lower the freezing point for a scoopable texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Syrup
Sugar dissolved in water adds sweetness and softness, keeping the ice from freezing rock hard.
Orange rind
Infused into the syrup to carry aromatic oil and a fresh orange aroma.

The step that matters

Working the freezer while the ice sets. Constant stirring and scraping breaks up ice crystals as they form, keeping the mixture smooth and compact rather than coarse and icy. Stopping early leaves large crystals and a grainy texture.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits less well
  4. Vanillafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, syrup. 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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