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Black Currant Sherbet

A chilled sweet beverage made from black currants, water, sugar, egg whites, raspberry juice, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and raspberry work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 366 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells fruity, sweet. The science ↓

Black Currant Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Combine bruised currants and water in a large container. Let it sit for 2 days, stirring frequently.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Add brown sugar to the strained liquid and mix well.

Clarify and age

  1. Transfer the mixture to a cask and add beaten egg whites, raspberry juice, and dissolved isinglass.

  2. Seal the cask and let it stand for 1 month. Check for clarity.

  3. If not clear, transfer to another vessel and let it stand for another month before bottling.

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. Currant + raspberrytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together366 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + raspberrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,101 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Egg + raspberrytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Currant + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fresh currants
Provide the main fruit flavour and colour of the sherbet.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the liquid.
Whites of 3 eggs
Egg whites bind fine particles that are then removed, helping the liquid clear.
Isinglass
A gelatin-like fining agent that helps draw suspended particles out so the liquid clears.
Raspberry juice
Adds extra fruit flavour and aroma to the blend.

The step that matters

Clarifying with egg whites and isinglass. Fining agents need to be fully dissolved and evenly mixed into the liquid before standing. Poor mixing leaves cloudiness, and the cask must then sit undisturbed so particles can settle out.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, raspberry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Red currantfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, raspberry. 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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