Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Cherry Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Make the juice
Place the stoned cherries and water in a pot and bring to a boil, covered.
Press the mixture through a sieve to extract the juice.
Flavour and sweeten
Break a handful of cherry stones and infuse them in boiling water for 1 hour.
Combine the infused water with the cherry juice and lemon juice.
Stir in the sugar until fully dissolved.
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.
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Cherries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and most of the juice for the ice.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the mixture and lowers its freezing point for a softer ice.
- Lemon
- Adds acidity that brightens the cherry flavour and balances the sweetness.
The step that matters
Stir in the sugar until fully dissolved. Undissolved sugar grains can leave a gritty texture in the frozen ice. Fully dissolving the sugar in the warm liquid gives a smooth, even sweetness throughout.
“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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