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Dessert

Red-currant-ice

A frozen dessert made from red currant juice, powdered sugar, orange zest, orange and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Red-currant-ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Combine red currant juice and powdered sugar in a large bowl.

  2. Add orange zest and the juice of oranges and lemons to taste.

  3. Dissolve the sugar completely.

  4. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Freeze and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into an ice box and let it freeze for about 10 minutes.

  2. Stir the ice with a large spoon.

  3. Shape the ice into a pyramid on a napkin and serve with little cakes.

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. Red currant + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Red currant + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Red currant juice
Provides the main liquid and tart fruit flavor of the ice.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the base and dissolves easily, helping keep the ice smooth.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavor to balance the sweetness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the sugar.

The step that matters

Dissolve the sugar completely. Undissolved sugar grains stay gritty as the mixture freezes, and sugar also lowers the freezing point, so the ice needs to be fully smooth and evenly sweetened before it is stirred and frozen.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

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

More red currant ice recipes

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