Name: Apple Water Ice
Ingredients: 1 pint apple pulp; 1 pint syrup; 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Water Ice

Ingredients

1 pint apple pulp
1 pint syrup
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Directions

Prepare the apple pulp

Stew the apples in a jar.
Pass the apples through a fine sieve.

Make the mixture

Stir the apple pulp into the hot syrup.
When cold, add the lemon juice and freeze.
For color, add a few drops of carmine or cochineal.

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.

Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,235 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Apple + syruptop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together742 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).