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Dessert

Lemon Sorbet

A frozen dessert made from lemon juice, orange juice, sugar, egg whites, Marsala wine, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Lemon Sorbet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup and juice base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the loaf sugar and water; heat until the sugar dissolves, then bring to a boil, reduce slightly, and skim off any foam.

  2. Add the grated rind of 2 lemons and the juice of the lemons and oranges; bring to a boil again, then strain and let cool.

Freeze and finish

  1. Partially freeze the mixture, then fold in the whisked egg whites, castor sugar, and Marsala wine; continue freezing until the desired consistency is reached.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Orange + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Loaf sugar
Sweetens the base and, dissolved in water, forms the syrup that gives the sorbet its smooth body.
Lemons
Provide the acidity and bright lemon aroma, with rind adding fragrant oils.
Egg whites
Whisked and folded in, they add airy lightness and a smoother, more tender texture.
Marsala wine
Adds flavour and alcohol, which keeps the sorbet softer by limiting how hard it freezes.

The step that matters

Partially freeze before folding in the egg whites. If the base is fully frozen, the whisked egg whites and sugar cannot blend evenly, leaving a grainy or dense texture. Partial freezing keeps the mixture slushy enough to fold in the foam without deflating it.

“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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