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Dessert

Orange Sherbet

A chilled dessert made from orange and lemon rinds, sugar, milk, cream, and rennet, sweetened with fruit syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Orange Sherbet

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the rinds of the oranges and lemon with 2 quarts of water and 1 pound of sugar for 5 minutes.

  2. Let the syrup cool, then add the juice of the oranges and lemon.

Make the custard

  1. Heat 1 quart of milk until lukewarm, then add the rennet.

  2. Combine the warm milk with the remaining milk and cream, then sweeten to taste.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture until it reaches a mushy consistency.

  2. Stir in the fruit syrup.

  3. Add salt for successful freezing.

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.

  1. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + junkettop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + junkettop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen sherbet.
Milk
Provides the main body and moisture, and is set by the rennet.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, smoother texture.
Rennet
An enzyme that sets the milk, giving the mixture a thickened base.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavour.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic oils and citrus flavour from the rind.

The step that matters

Add the rennet to lukewarm milk. Rennet is an enzyme that sets milk, and very hot milk can weaken or destroy it. Heat the milk only until lukewarm before adding the rennet so it can thicken the mixture properly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar, milk, cream, junket. 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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