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 Water Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Make a syrup by boiling the sugar with 1 pint of water and the yellow part of the lemon rind for 10 to 20 minutes.
Combine and chill
Add the juice of the lemons and oranges along with the remaining ½ pint of cold water.
Color the mixture with the grated rind of the oranges or with saffron.
Mix well, strain, and chill until as cold as possible.
Freeze
Freeze according to your ice cream maker's instructions.
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 + orangetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Loaf sugar
- Dissolves into the syrup to provide sweetness and body in the frozen ice.
- Lemons
- Provide the acidity and bright flavor that define the water ice.
- Oranges
- Add sweetness and aroma alongside the lemon juice.
The step that matters
Chill until as cold as possible. The mixture must be thoroughly chilled before freezing, because a warm base freezes slowly and forms larger ice crystals, giving a coarser, icier texture.
“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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