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Drink

The Juice of Fresh-gathered Fruit Iced

A chilled beverage made from currants or raspberries, sugar, lemon juice, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

The Juice of Fresh-gathered Fruit Iced

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Press the currants or raspberries through a sieve to extract the juice.

  2. Add the pounded loaf sugar and a little lemon juice to the fruit juice.

  3. Stir in the cream until well combined.

Freeze

  1. Whisk the mixture before freezing for a smoother texture.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes
  5. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Currants or raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and the juice that forms the base.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the texture of the frozen mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the fruit flavour.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother, creamier frozen texture.

The step that matters

Whisk the mixture before freezing. Whisking breaks up forming ice crystals and incorporates air, so the frozen result is smoother rather than coarse and icy.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, cream. 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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