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Dessert

Mille-fruit Water Ice

A chilled fruit ice made with lemon zest, lemon and orange juice, water, clarified sugar, grape syrup, sherry, and preserved fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Mille-fruit Water Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Zest the lemons and juice the lemons and orange.

  2. In a bowl, combine the lemon zest, lemon juice, orange juice, water, clarified sugar, grape syrup, and sherry. Mix well until the sugar is dissolved.

Freeze and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

  2. Once the ice is frozen, fold in the finely chopped preserved fruit.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Orange + grapetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Grape + sherrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Orange + sherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together823 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Provide the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and gives the ice its bright flavor.
Clarified sugar
Sweetens the ice and lowers its freezing point so it stays scoopable rather than rock hard.
Grape syrup
Adds concentrated sweetness and fruity flavor to the base.
Sherry
Adds aromatic depth and a little alcohol, which also keeps the ice softer when frozen.
Preserved fruit
Adds chunks of concentrated fruit flavor and texture folded into the frozen ice.

The step that matters

Folding in the preserved fruit after freezing. Adding the fruit only once the ice is frozen keeps the pieces distributed rather than sinking or melting into the base. Sugar and alcohol in the base lower its freezing point, so the ice must be firm enough to hold the chopped fruit evenly.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, orange, sugar, syrup, sherry. 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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