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Strawberry Water Ice

A chilled dessert made by freezing a strawberry and sugar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Strawberry Water Ice

Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Strawberry Water Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Remove the stalks from the strawberries and press them through a sieve into a basin.

  2. Add 1½ pints of water and ½ pound of powdered sugar; mix well.

Freeze

  1. Strain the mixture through a sieve and freeze it until thick and smooth.

  2. If not thick, add a little syrup and freeze again before serving.

Out-of-season variation

  1. If strawberries are out of season, use 2 tablespoons of strawberry jam, juice of 1 lemon, and 1½ pints of water; strain and 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.

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.

  1. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + strawberry jamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together291 recipes
  3. Lemon + strawberry jamtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together84 recipes

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

Strawberries
Provide the main flavour and colour of the ice.
Powdered loaf sugar
Sweetens the ice and lowers its freezing point so it stays softer.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the strawberry flavour.
Water
Dilutes the fruit and sugar so the mixture can freeze into ice crystals.

The step that matters

Freezing until thick and smooth. Freezing must be stopped at the right point. Stirring or breaking up ice crystals as it sets keeps the texture fine; if it freezes solid, it becomes coarse and icy. Sugar lowers the freezing point, so a thicker, sweeter mix needs more time to firm up.

Swap the strawberry jam

The recipe marks strawberry jam as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Strawberry jamthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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