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Dessert

Glaces—ices

A frozen dessert made from finely chopped fruit, sugar, water, lemon juice, egg whites, rum, and liqueur.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Glaces—ices

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Chop the fruit slices very finely.

  2. Place the chopped fruit in a basin.

  3. Add the castor sugar and 1 cup of water.

  4. Let it sit for at least an hour.

Make the syrup

  1. In a copper saucepan, bring 1 cup of water to a boil.

  2. Add the fruit mixture.

  3. Boil briefly, skimming off any scum that rises to the top.

  4. Let it cool.

  5. Strain in the juice of 2 lemons.

Freeze and serve

  1. Freeze the mixture in the usual manner.

  2. When about half-frozen, stir in the beaten egg whites, rum, and liqueur.

  3. Continue freezing until it has a creamy appearance.

  4. Serve in sorbet cups or glasses.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and sugar 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

Fruit slices
Provide the main flavour and aroma, with their juice and oil infusing the syrup.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the mixture and softens the texture of the frozen sorbet.
Egg whites
Add airy lightness and a creamy body to the partly frozen mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Skimming the boiled fruit syrup. Boiling briefly and skimming off the scum removes impurities that would cloud the flavour and texture. Letting the mixture cool fully before freezing keeps the sorbet from melting and turning icy.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Pineapplefits about as well
  4. Limefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, egg, rum. 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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