Name: Barberry Ice Cream
Ingredients: 1 pint of cream; 1 spoonful of barberry jam; 1 lemon; cochineal (for coloring)

Why it works: Cream and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,640 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Barberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

1 pint of cream
1 spoonful of barberry jam
1 lemon
cochineal (for coloring)

Directions

Make the mixture

In a basin, combine the barberry jam and cream.
Squeeze the lemon juice into the mixture and mix well.
Add cochineal to achieve the desired color.

Freeze

Transfer the mixture to a freezing pot and cover it.
Place the freezing pot in a pail filled with ice and salt to freeze.

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.

Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,640 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,640 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

Cream: Provides fat and richness, giving the ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.
Barberry jam: Adds sweetness and fruity flavor to the cream base.
Lemon: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the sweet cream and jam.

“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.