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Drink

Cider Ice

A chilled frozen drink made from cider, syrup, apple pulp, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Cider Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix all the ingredients together.

  2. Bring to a boil and then pass through a fine sieve.

Freeze

  1. Let it cool, then freeze in the usual way.

  2. For color, add a few drops of spinach extract or carmine.

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. Cider + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Syrup + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together742 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cider + lemontop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together986 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cider
Provides the main apple flavour and liquid base of the ice.
Syrup
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice softer.
Unsweetened apple pulp
Adds body and fruit flavour without adding extra sweetness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Cool fully before freezing. Freezing a warm mixture forms larger ice crystals and a coarser texture. Letting it cool first gives a smoother, finer-grained ice.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, syrup, apple):

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, syrup, apple. 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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