Name: Lemon Water Ice
Ingredients: 1 pint of syrup (made from clarified sugar, omitting the egg white); ½ pint of lemon juice; rinds of 4 lemons

Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lemon Water Ice

Ingredients

1 pint of syrup (made from clarified sugar, omitting the egg white)
½ pint of lemon juice
rinds of 4 lemons

Directions

Prepare the syrup

Rub the sugar on the rinds of the lemons.
Make syrup with the sugar as directed and let it cool.

Combine and freeze

Strain the lemon juice and add it to the syrup, stirring well.
Freeze the mixture according to your ice cream maker's instructions.

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.

Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together44,316 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,235 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Lemon juice: Provides sourness and bright lemon flavour that balances the sweet syrup.
Sugar: Sweetens the mixture and forms the syrup that gives body to the frozen result.
Lemon rinds: Release aromatic oils into the sugar, adding fragrant lemon aroma.