Name: Lemon Water Ice
Ingredients: 1 pint syrup; 6 lemons

Why it works: Syrup and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,235 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lemon Water Ice

Ingredients

1 pint syrup
6 lemons

Directions

Prepare

Rub the lumps on the rind of the lemons.
Squeeze the lemons and strain the juice.

Combine and freeze

Combine the strained juice with the syrup and stir well.
Pour the mixture into the freezing pot.

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.

Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,235 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons: Provide the juice and acidity that give the water ice its sharp, bright flavour.
Syrup: Adds sweetness and softens the ice so it freezes with a smoother texture.

“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.