Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Sherbet, No. 1

A chilled orange and lemon sherbet made with water, sugar, citrus juice, egg whites, and orange rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Orange Sherbet, No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine 1 quart of water with sugar in a saucepan to make a syrup.

  2. Add the grated rind of an orange and a lemon to the syrup.

  3. Boil the mixture.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

Combine the juices

  1. Mix the cooled syrup with the juice from the oranges and lemons.

Freeze and finish

  1. Freeze the mixture.

  2. Once nearly frozen, stir in the beaten egg whites.

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

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

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

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

  4. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Egg whites
Whipped into the nearly frozen mixture to add air and a light, fluffy texture.
Orange juice
Provides the main citrus flavor and tartness that define the sherbet.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and keeps the frozen texture softer by lowering the freezing point.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg whites once the mixture is nearly frozen. If the mixture is still liquid, the beaten whites sink and deflate; if it is fully frozen, they cannot blend in evenly. Folding them in at the nearly frozen stage keeps air trapped for a lighter texture.

Swap the orange

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

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

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

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes